Statistical Anomaly
by A Gentleman Of Leisure
Summary: Why did The Initiative come to Sunnydale in the first place? 15 Chapters. FULLY REWRITTEN. NOW ABSOLUTELY COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED!
1. It's A Mystery

Title: "Statistical Anomaly".  
  
Part: 01/15  
  
Author: "A Gentleman Of Leisure".   
  
E-mail: nemo1nemobtopenworld.com  
  
Summary: What first prompted The Initiative to come to Sunnydale?  
  
Story Type: Buffyverse/X-Files Crossover.  
  
Rating overall: PG-13  
  
Spoilers: Takes place early in BtVS Series 2, late September 1997, just before S2x3. Possible spoilers up to BtVS Series 6.   
  
In X-Files time it takes place just before "Gethsemane".  
  
Distribution/Archiving: Ask first please.  
  
Disclaimer: No one here belongs to me - I've just borrowed them. All other Patents, Trademarks and Copyrights acknowledged.   
  
Author's Notes:  
1. This was the second Buffy story I wrote, but it's taken a long time to fully revise, due to RL.  
2. I'm a British writer, so there may be some terms (and spelling) not used in the US. OK? Now read on...

* * *

Part 1: "It's a Mystery".  
  
"Mulder, what are you doing?"  
  
"Hi, Scully. Come on in. Would you take a look at this and see what you make of it?"  
  
Dana Scully stood in the doorway and glanced round Fox Mulder's cramped, untidy, windowless office - the walls covered with diagrams and maps, lists of names and places, and photographs and posters showing unsharp images of things that might, or might not, have been alien craft. She looked at the piles of reference books, documents and files covering almost every horizontal surface, and she shook her head, wondering how on earth he ever managed to find anything he wanted in such a messy environment.  
  
"I really don't know how you can work in a room as cluttered as this, Mulder. You could at least let Housekeeping in once in a while to dust the place - it's really disgusting", she said.  
  
"Rubbish, I know exactly where everything is. I can find anything I want, just like that", and he snapped his fingers.  
  
'Rubbish is precisely the right word for it', Scully thought to herself. She sighed, and reluctantly began to pick her way across the room.  
  
"OK then, what have you got? A new sighting somewhere?"  
  
"No. This is something much stranger. I'm hoping you might be able to make more sense of it than I can".  
  
Fox Mulder looked up from the messy pile of papers on his desk in front of the computer. He seemed strangely excited.  
  
"I think I've found it, Scully. I think I might have actually found it!"  
  
"Found what, Mulder? What's all the fuss?"  
  
"I've found something incontrovertible, Scully. Real evidence - actual irrefutable data".  
  
"Of what, exactly?"  
  
"You know what of, Scully. Them. Proof they exist. That they're here. That they exist among us, and maybe have done for decades".  
  
"Aliens? OK, Mulder. Show me what you've got", she said cautiously, not really expecting anything she hadn't heard before. He was always finding 'incontrovertible' proof of one sort or another of the existence of extraterrestrials, but although she'd seen some pretty damned strange things while working with him, somehow she'd never been entirely convinced the same way he had. This time however, he surprised her with a question, one which seemed to have no connection with his previous statement.  
  
"What's the birth rate in an average small coastal town in Southern California, Scully?"  
  
"I have no idea. Why don't you look it up in the Census database?"  
  
"I just did. Here". He passed her the pages of printout he was holding. "But look at these figures on the screen", he added.  
  
Scully studied them for a minute or two before responding.  
  
"A bit low, I suppose. Why, does it matter? There'll always be some variation from one part of the country to another".  
  
"Now look at the death rate". He tapped the Page Down key to another table of information. "See how that compares".  
  
Scully looked from the screen to the printout, and after a moment back again. Now she was frowning slightly.  
  
"Nonsense. That's got to be a mistake. They must've got their spreadsheet formula scrambled up, surely. Or else someone's entered the wrong figures. It can't possibly be that high".  
  
"I agree. If it went on like that the place would be a ghost town in another ten years or so".  
  
"How many inhabitants?"  
  
"About 38,000 - it really is a pretty small town. Of course I haven't had time to check back through earlier Census data yet - the population may well have been slowly declining for decades. It's peculiar though - would you believe it has a National Guard Depot, an industrial zone, and a University of California Campus?"  
  
"What? A College Campus in a town that small? That's a little unusual".  
  
"There's more. It has a harbour, a bus terminus, a railway terminus, a hospital, at least one art gallery, a shopping galleria and a museum. It's even got its own local airport. But it gets even better, Scully, and you'll love this - the town apparently has 42 graveyards! And 43 churches!"  
  
"That can't possibly be right. Those figures must be erroneous".  
  
"I agree. Mind you", he added soberly, "I guess they might feel they need them, because the percentage of pupils graduating from High School is ridiculously low".  
  
"How's that? I don't follow your reasoning".  
  
"It's because the death rate among them is unbelievably high. Even higher than the town's annual average, which is more than high enough, though it does seem to have reduced slightly in the last year or so".  
  
Scully glanced up at him.  
  
"How high?" she said quietly.  
  
"Anything up to 35 percent by my estimate. Not annually", he added hastily, seeing her stunned expression. "That's over their entire time at High School, of course".  
  
"That's still impossible!" She frowned, and then asked "What are the causes of death?"  
  
"Mainly murders of one sort or another, and animal attacks, and disappearances. The percentage rate is many times higher than the very toughest parts of major cities like L.A. and Chicago. But look at this", he continued, paging down another screenfull on the monitor. "Gun ownership is the lowest I've ever seen".  
  
"That is bizarre, Mulder - it makes no sort of sense".   
  
"I agree - none at all". He shrugged. "I don't pretend to understand it".   
  
"And why do you suppose we haven't heard about any of this before?"  
  
"But Scully, that's my whole point, don't you see? There is something seriously strange about the place".  
  
"What the hell do the local police think they're doing?"   
  
"Not a lot, so far as I can make out", Mulder said laconically.  
  
Scully shook her head. "There's got to be some logical explanation", she said. "Even if those figures were true, no town that small could possibly need that many cemeteries, not even if it was several centuries old. How old is it, by the way?"  
  
Mulder scrolled back to the top of the file.  
  
"Founded in 1899. Apparently".  
  
"It all sounds totally ludicrous. Anyway, how did you come across this place? Where is it?"  
  
"It's in southern California, a couple of hours drive up the coast from LA, just off Route 17. I came across it when I was doing some background checking.   
  
"You see", he went on, "about ten days ago an agent set out to drive up to San Francisco from the Los Angeles office. Only he never got there. So they sent another agent out to look for him. That one spent two days making discrete enquiries on the way up a hundred miles of the coast without any result. He last reported in from a motel on the outskirts of our mystery town. After that - nothing. He too seems to have vanished".  
  
"What did the local police say? Any trace?"  
  
"For some reason they've been strangely unhelpful. They just said they'd look into it, but we've had exactly nothing back from them since then".  
  
"And you suspect that this all signifies...?"  
  
Mulder raised an eyebrow. Scully looked at her partner and smiled.  
  
"So you're going out there to help look for two lost sheep? Well Mulder, I'd really like to lend a hand, but I'm afraid you're on your own this time. I'm supposed to be starting a series of lectures on Forensics to the new intake tomorrow morning".  
  
Mulder nodded.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Skinner's sending me out there to wake up the locals because the LA office is now two under strength. It is safe to let me out on my own you know, Scully", he added, smiling slightly.  
  
"I sometimes wonder", she responded doubtfully. "You haven't even told me the name of this delightfully weird little town".  
  
"Oh sorry, didn't I? It's called... er... Sunnydale".

* * *

END OF PART 1. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	2. Food for Thought

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 2: "Food For Thought".  
  
"Now we're going to have to buy a brand new bow from the sporting goods store. I'm not sure the Watcher's Council is going to be too happy about the expense".  
  
"Hey! It's not Buffy's fault she broke it. They should have paid for a decent hunting bow in the first place".  
  
"Thank you, Xander. After all Giles, I was only doing what you asked. I can't help that it wasn't up to the job".  
  
"I thought it was amazing when you put the arrow right through that log. It must have been a foot thick at least ".  
  
"Only eleven inches, Willow. I measured it first. I wanted to be able to judge just what Buffy is capable of. I believe that with sufficient training she can do even better".  
  
"And with a better bow, of course".  
  
Rupert Giles, librarian at Sunnydale High School, and the Slayer's Watcher, suddenly pulled hard left on the steering wheel of his old Citroen DS 19, swerving out just in time to avoid running straight into the back of a shiny new grey Ford sedan which had been left parked at the side of the road on the far side of a blind bend. They came to a halt with tyres squealing, a little further on, and everyone looked back, Buffy sitting in the front next to Giles, and Willow, Xander and Cordelia squashed into the back, not that Xander minded being in the middle.  
  
"Wow! That was a bit too close for comfort", Willow said shakily.  
  
"What a stupid place to stop", Xander exclaimed. "We nearly smashed right into it".  
  
"Some people have no consideration for others", Cordelia announced, as if the concept had only just occurred to her.  
  
"And you would be an expert on the subject, of course?" Buffy responded sweetly.  
  
"Well, at least I don't go around breaking expensive pieces of equipment", Cordelia said tartly.  
  
"No, of course not. You might chip your nail polish", Willow commented quietly, and Giles couldn't help smiling to himself.  
  
"Where's the driver? D'you suppose his car broke down?" said Buffy.  
  
"He might be walking down the road, trying to find a phone", Xander said. "Could be his cell phone's out. I know this whole area is bad for reception - maybe it's the Hellmouth's influence".  
  
"Well we didn't pass anyone, so either he's up ahead, or... I suppose he might have gone into the woods", Giles said.  
  
"Why would he do that?" Willow asked, puzzled. The two men looked at her for a moment, and she gazed back at them.  
  
"Um... perhaps to find a big tree, Wills", Xander suggested.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"To go behind", Buffy said gently, and Willow blushed and said hastily, "Oh. Oh, of course. I knew that".  
  
"Well, wherever he's been, he's not there now. He's standing over there on the other side of the road looking at us. And I think he's coming over", Cordelia said. "Kinda cute, too", she added. "Really cool shades he's wearing - I think they look like genuine Armani Aviators".  
  
"Careful. We don't know what he wants".  
  
"Buffy, it's broad daylight", Xander said. "There are five of us, we have a car load of sharp and pointy weapons to defend ourselves with, and he's wearing a suit".  
  
"This is very true", said Giles, winding down his window.  
  
-----  
  
"Training for the Olympic archery squad?" Mulder thought, smiling to himself as he pulled up in the forecourt of the Bates Motel on the outskirts of Sunnydale. "I don't think so". He shook his head, and went in to register, still wondering why the face of the Englishman who'd been driving had seemed vaguely familiar.  
  
The proprietor claimed he didn't recognise the photo of the second missing agent, but Mulder hadn't really expected him to. The man seemed a little edgy though, nervous, and he filed the impression away for later.  
  
On his way in from the airport, Mulder hadn't seen any trace of either of the cars the two missing agents had been driving, and the kids he'd encountered with their teacher had said they'd not noticed any abandoned vehicles anywhere out in the countryside, so if he was going to find them his next move was to introduce himself to the local police.  
  
As it was lunch time he stopped at a fast food diner, some sort of "Burger Palace", he didn't really notice the name. There was the usual random collection of customers, any one of whom could have been either a serial killer or a saint, or even an alien in disguise, without his being able to distinguish between them.  
  
While out on assignments Mulder would sometimes amuse himself with trying to do the Sherlock Holmes trick of attempting to deduce people's occupations solely by visual observation. He'd never mentioned it to Scully, neither did he ever try to verify his conclusions, preferring to leave them as an interesting mystery, but somehow this afternoon it didn't seem to be so entertaining. There was a strange feeling of tension in the air, despite everything looking so normal. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and this bothered him.  
  
The burger wasn't up to much either. It had a slightly peculiar taste, and he left half of it.  
  
-----  
  
"Detective Norman Stein, but just call me Frank - everyone else round here does".  
  
Fox Mulder looked at the officer blankly, and someone at the back of the squad room sniggered. Stein looked embarrassed and led Mulder into his office.  
  
"We got the fax you were coming, and we've had officers out looking for several days, but there hasn't been a trace of your missing people. I'm afraid we can't keep our boys occupied on it for too much longer, though - we're only a small force, and we've got a pretty heavy caseload here".  
  
"So I noticed", Mulder said, and Stein decided he didn't like Mulder's tone of voice. It boded ill for the future, he thought. He was promptly proved right.  
  
"I had a look at some of the statistics for Sunnydale before I flew out from Washington. They were, well, 'interesting' would be a good word for it, I thought".   
  
"I know what you mean, but we are getting on top of it. Things are getting better, Agent Mulder. Next year's figures will show another improvement..."  
  
Mulder interrupted him.  
  
"I was particularly wondering if you thought there was some sort of outside influence affecting the town".  
  
"Like gangs, you mean?" Detective Stein said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly thought Mulder, but didn't say anything, just looked at him.  
  
"Nothing we can't handle, Agent", Stein assured him. "And we'll keep on looking for your people, no matter what".  
  
A short while later Fox Mulder let himself be shepherded back out to the parking lot, where he was amused and intrigued to notice that each of the off duty squad cars had a bunch of garlic and a crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror.  
  
-----  
  
"So, a real live G-man", Xander said. "Did anyone believe that story of his about looking for a couple of missing agents?"  
  
"Well, if agents were to go missing, SunnyD would be the ideal place to go missing in. Or do I mean from?"  
  
"Both could be correct, Buffy, depending on whether they were still here somewhere, or were not", Giles told her. "I personally believed him".  
  
"Why, because he was wearing a suit?"  
  
"Well, being properly dressed certainly does say something about a man, even though it wasn't exactly Savile Row".  
  
"Huh?" said Buffy.  
  
"Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter", said Giles. "Listen, I want to test your strength, so that we can get a new bow for you that has the right pull. Xander and I have rigged this ingenious little device to do just that. It's a rope going through a pulley, with a hook to put weights on the end. It's fastened to the banisters of the stairs leading to the upper book stacks. You just stand there as if you were about to draw back an arrow, and when I say the word you... erm..."  
  
"Pull?"  
  
"Yes, exactly. You're really beginning to get the hang of this training, Buffy, aren't you? I'm very pleased".  
  
He took off his glasses and cleaned them again, beaming short sightedly at her while he did so.  
  
"Wow, cool. Do I get the extra donut then?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Oh, all right, so long as it's not a jam, er... jelly one", Giles said, having a quick look in the box. Buffy grabbed the last lonely item of confectionary before he could change his mind, and chomped away happily.  
  
"Got to keep my strength up for vampire slayage. Calories equals dusting power", she observed happily with her mouth full.  
  
"With me, calories mean inches", Cordelia said bad temperedly. "I only have to look at a carrot and I put on half a pound". She jumped up. "I can't bear to sit here all day watching you eating".  
  
"Don't you have an elsewhere to be, then?" Xander said, turning one of her own catchphrases back at her.  
  
She gave him a dirty look and marched off towards the door. As she pushed to open it, another student coming in to borrow a book did exactly the same, so she just pushed harder. The student wisely retreated, and let her march out.

* * *

END OF PART 2. TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Two's Company

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 3: "Two's Company..."  
  
Later that evening Buffy was out on patrol. Well, not exactly on patrol, yet - she was in the main shopping street, looking in the window of a fashion store, wondering if she had enough of her allowance left for a rather attractive top that had been specially reduced in price. Tomorrow was the last day of the Sale.  
  
Across the road a car parked up, but Buffy was so engrossed that she didn't notice the driver approaching until he spoke her name. By the time she realised he was there, and recognised him, it was much too late to slip away into the shadows.  
  
"Evening, sir... um... Agent Mulder. Have you had any luck looking for your friends?" she asked politely.  
  
"Not so far. Nor even a trace of either of their cars".  
  
"I'll keep an eye open, if you like", she offered, not knowing exactly what else she could say, and hoping it would satisfy him. She really didn't want to get into a conversation because she was somewhat overdue at 'The Lawns' cemetery a mile away, where she had arranged to meet Angel. It wouldn't take her long to get there, about three minutes at the speed she could run, but while she was stuck here in the street making small talk with an FBI agent, who knew what the members of the town's undead population might be getting up to?  
  
"I... er... gotta be going. Home. That is... I'm late. I don't want to be grounded, right? Grounded is bad". She waved vaguely in a northeasterly direction and shuffled her feet, hoping he would get the message.  
  
Mulder smiled. A typical SoCal teen, out later than she should be. Small, blonde, lightly built, probably a cheerleader, obviously ditzy. Except for the archery. How on earth could she have broken a hunting bow? He wondered about that, but made no comment.  
  
"Well, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble. Here". He dug in a pocket and handed her a police flyer. "These are the two men who are missing. Can you get your friends at school to take a look? OK?"  
  
"Certainly will, sir. Looking is good", Buffy told him, hoping that was it as she stuffed the leaflet into her jacket.  
  
"Thank you, Miss Summers. Off you go then - I don't want you to be in trouble with your parents".  
  
Buffy made her escape gracefully, and gratefully, walking purposefully away down the street until she was sure she was lost from view, and then cutting down a side alley and racing off across town.  
  
-----  
  
If Fox Mulder had stuck to his original intention of talking to late evening shoppers, of showing them the pictures of his missing colleagues, maybe none of what took place subsequently would ever have happened. But he did, and history was changed. Things, as they say, were never quite the same after that. Not that any of them were aware of it for at least a couple of years. And Buffy herself never found out that, in a way, she was responsible. But then, hey - stuff happens, right? So deal with it.  
  
Instead, Mulder decided to take a walk, to explore the neighbourhood. It wasn't long before he had left the good part of town. The difference was brutally obvious, he could hardly avoid noticing when he entered the bad part - it was almost like stepping over a line. He simply turned the corner into a back street and it was as if he was in a different town altogether. Shabby rundown houses, rubbish-strewn dirty sidewalks, abandoned buildings, poorly dressed scruffy looking people scurrying furtively by who watched him suspiciously out of the corners of their eyes, broken street lights, and the feeling that someone, or something, was following him. As he walked through the maze of narrow alleyways, a couple of times he stepped back into the shadows and watched to see if any pursuer would show themselves, but there were no anonymous footsteps that stopped when he did, no nondescript figures showing an unusual interest in dusty, flyblown shop windows just down the street.   
  
Even so, he was strangely thankful when, a short while later, he emerged into what he thought at first was a park. That was until he realised it contained more than just pathways, trees and bushes. And that it was in fact one of the most densely populated parts of town. No voters or taxpayers living here though, just the previous inhabitants of Sunnydale, quietly sleeping until the Last Trump should tell them all it was time to Rise-And-Shine.  
  
However cemeteries had never bothered Mulder, and he strolled past the tidy rows of headstones, crypts and mausolea, glancing with genuine interest at the names. Wilkins (two of them, father and son by the look of it), Alpert ('any relation to Herb, and his Tijuana Brass?' he wondered), Flutie. It was all as good a way as any of familiarising himself with the place. After all, one had to be aware of the local names, didn't one?  
  
The thought of all the deceased at rest didn't disturb him one little bit, nor the darkness, or the quiet. No, it wasn't that at all.  
  
It was the hand on his shoulder.  
  
-----  
  
Buffy finally unpeeled herself reluctantly from her boyfriend.  
  
"Sorry. I was delayed by the FBI guy who's in town searching for his missing buddies. He wanted me to take a look at their pictures".  
  
"Well, the word is they aren't missing any more", Angel said. "But he's not going to be very pleased when he finds them".  
  
"Huh? Why not? Something happened to them? Are they dead?"  
  
"Sort of", Angel said. "I think you know what I mean. I reckon we'd better try and find them before he does. Or worse - they find him. Got your stake?"  
  
"Don't leave home without it", Buffy quipped, tossing it into the air and catching it again.  
  
"OK, then. We'd better get to them before they 'persuade' him to change sides like they have. The last thing you want in Sunnydale is three FBI trained vamps".  
  
"Two's company, three's a crowd, as Giles would say", Buffy said with a grin. "Where do you think we should start? I left Agent Mouldy safe on Main Street a little over a quarter hour ago".  
  
"I don't think we need to go that far", Angel told her, pointing over towards the other side of the cemetery.  
  
-----  
  
Mulder spun round, heart suddenly racing, his hand automatically going to the holster on his belt.   
  
"I hear you're looking for us", one of the figures in the shadows said. "I guess the office was wondering what happened. Well they needn't have worried - we're fine".  
  
"In fact, it's a good thing we found you", the other one said. "We're onto something interesting here, and we need an extra body. Geddit? Extra body?"  
  
"In fact, that's why we've gone under cover. We daren't show ourselves in the daytime - it's not safe".  
  
Mulder smiled a little thinly, and relaxed somewhat. He thought he really must see if he could submit a new sub-paragraph for incorporation into the FBI training manual - something about levity while out on operations in the field. Could be distracting. And potentially fatal.  
  
"What have you got? I did a check on the town before I flew out from Washington, and it's a really peculiar place. Have you got any idea what is going on here?"  
  
"You're Mulder, aren't you? We've heard about you. They call you Spooky".  
  
Mulder sighed, and nodded. He really hated that nickname.  
  
"It's just a joke", he told them.  
  
"And you're assigned to the X-Files, right? Aliens and flying saucers, and stuff. Is that what you think it is?" the other figure said. For some reason Mulder couldn't fathom, the man sounded as if he was trying not to laugh, though not really trying very hard. Mulder had heard the tone of voice before, and quietly gritted his teeth.  
  
"Well, to be honest, we do know what's strange about Sunnydale" said the first one. "We both found out pretty quickly, but I don't think you're going to like it".  
  
"No, you're really not going to like it...", the second person said quietly, "...not one tiny little bit", and stepped forward into the light from the lamp post a few yards along the path. Mulder had just a couple of seconds to see his face before everything suddenly seemed to happen at once.

* * *

END OF PART 3. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	4. The Morning After The Night Before

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 4: "The Morning After The Night Before"."Hey, Buffy! What happened?"  
  
"We jumped them before they were able to bite him. Angel grabbed the guy and dragged him out of the way while I went for the two vamps. Tried to stake the nearest but I missed my aim. Unfortunately I didn't get a second chance".  
  
"And?"  
  
"Why not?"   
  
Both questions came simultaneously.  
  
"They vanished. Ran for it. Vamoosed. I chased, they ambushed and tripped me, and then they pulled the old invisibility number on me and just disappeared. I was left sitting on my butt in the dark feeling stupid".  
  
"Oh, surely not", said Giles, and Buffy gave him one of her pained looks.  
  
"You mean they didn't stay and fight? No knock-down-drag-out-chop-socky action?"  
  
"No Will, not even any hair pulling or name calling. Angel said it looked like they'd made a strategic withdrawal. My guess is they ducked down into the storm drains that we know run under the cemetery".  
  
"How very intelligent. That doesn't sound like your usual run of the mill vampires", Giles said thoughtfully, and took his glasses off to polish them. "I suppose that must be the FBI training. What about Agent Mouldy, I mean Mulder? What happened to him? I hope he didn't recognise you".  
  
"Oh, I doubt it. I'm pretty sure he didn't get a chance to see much of anything. He'd knocked his head on a grave marker and been stunned, but he seemed OK. Anyway it was all pretty dark. Angel said he'd dump him back at his motel - his car keys were in his pocket".  
  
"I guess that's why they're called headstones", Xander observed.  
  
"God, that is so lame", Cordelia said. "Do you always have to joke about things all the time? Angel could have knocked his brains out".  
  
"Would we notice if Angel had knocked his brains out? Oh, I see, you mean this Mouldy guy's brains. I say again, how could we tell?"  
  
"Yes", Giles said slowly, not really listening to them. "I'm just a little bothered about what you heard him saying to these other two. Are you quite sure they were talking about aliens and flying saucers? I mean, it's all rubbish, you know. Complete nonsense. Everyone knows there are no such things".  
  
"Giles, I don't think we can really say that. Not for certain", said Willow thoughtfully. "After all everybody knows there are really no such things as vampires and demons. Don't they?"  
  
-----  
  
Mulder woke suddenly with a splitting headache. For a moment or two he couldn't remember anything, even where he was or why he was there. Then the events of the previous evening came filtering back and he sat up. Perhaps a little too quickly.  
  
When the room had more-or-less stopped spinning erratically round him, he discovered he was still fully dressed, with even his shoes on, and had been lying across the bed in his motel room. He wondered how he'd got back there the night before.  
  
His cell phone was chirruping in an irritatingly optimistic manner - that must have been what had woken him. Annoyed, he picked it up, intending to hurl it through the window, but it seemed less effort to put it to his ear and mutter hello instead.  
  
"Mulder? I've been calling you for half an hour. Where have you been?"  
  
It was Scully, of course - who else? Her voice pierced his brain like an ice pick, and merely intensified and enhanced his headache.  
  
"Here Scully. I think. I've only just woken up. I'm not sure how I got back here last night". He paused as a memory floated into view. "I think someone drove me, but I'm not really certain. I know I got a bang on the head, but..."  
  
"Are you OK? What happened? Are you hurt?" She sounded genuinely concerned.  
  
Mulder took a moment or two out to assemble his thoughts. He needed to be sure of his memories of the previous night.  
  
"No permanent damage, I think. Nothing a mild analgesic won't take care of, or anyway a strong one, ". He hesitated. "And I think I've found our missing agents", he added, "but..."  
  
He paused again, and on the other side of the continent Scully bit her tongue and waited. After a moment or so the small voice in her earpiece resumed.  
  
"...Something seems to have happened to them, Scully. Something very strange. It was a really weird experience. I know we've come across some unusual things while investigating X-Files cases, but this might just beat the lot of them, hands down".  
  
"You found them? So where were they?" she asked.  
  
"I met them in a cemetery, of all places - I think they'd been following me. They kept in the shadows and I couldn't see them properly. They said they were on the run".  
  
"What, both of them? They were together?"  
  
"Yes. We talked for a couple of minutes. Then one of them came closer, into the light, and - now I think this is the strangest thing I've ever seen in my whole life - I swear as he did so his face started to change, Scully. One moment he looked exactly like the picture I was given, then the next his features just seemed to melt into this... strange, ugly, alien creature".  
  
"It melted?" Scully obviously couldn't quite believe her ears.  
  
"That's right, melted. You know - dissolved. Changed. Morphed. I don't really know how else to describe it, Scully. It was like something out of a horror film. One second I was looking at a human being, and the next there was some sort of alien with a peculiar, lumpy face and great sharp teeth, coming towards me, and then... Well, I don't know exactly what happened after that".  
  
"Wait a moment, Mulder. Were you actually attacked? "  
  
"Yes, I was. Well, at least I think so. The creature was speaking to me as its face was changing - and then someone else (a third person I think, not the other agent) rushed at me and threw me to the ground. I hit my head on something, possibly a gravestone. I was stunned, and it was dark, but I'm reasonably sure I could see some sort of fight going on. There was someone else, a woman - small, blonde I think - attacking the two agents - aliens. Hell's teeth, I don't even know what to call them, Scully".   
  
Three thousand miles away Dana Scully frowned. Mulder almost never swore, hardly even a 'damn'. He sounded shaken, and somewhat confused. Not that surprising, she supposed. If he'd really just encountered, face to face, one, no two, of the beings he'd spent years trying to prove actually existed, then the experience might possibly have affected him more than he realised.  
  
"You mean another, fourth person was attacking them? A woman? Could you see who she was? Or do you think you could recognise her if you saw her again?"  
  
Mulder remained silent for a whole minute, replaying the scene in his mind's eye. Scully waited for him, though she was hardly able to resist the instinctive urge to speak, to hurry him up, to prompt him to reply.  
  
"You know", he said slowly, "I could swear it looked like that girl I told you about. Buffy Summers. You remember I said I'd met her and her friends and that teacher of theirs when I was driving in from the airport yesterday? Well, I bumped into her again last night, less than half an hour before all this happened. She was downtown in the shopping mall, looking in a fashion store window".  
  
"Did you see what happened? What about the guy who knocked you down? Did you get a good look at him?"  
  
"Not really. I've only got a rather vague impression of a tall heavy man, about six foot, in a long dark coat. Short hair. Very strong. That's all, sorry. Not much of a witness this morning, am I? ".  
  
"But you're OK?"  
  
"Oh, I think so. Arms and legs still bend the right way, eyes still focus, no blood. Ow!"  
  
"What?" Scully exclaimed anxiously, her voice tinny and distorted in the phone earpiece.  
  
"A big lump on the side of my head. I don't think I'm concussed, though. Do I still sound as if I'm making sense?"  
  
At that Scully just couldn't stop herself from laughing out loud.  
  
"What's so funny? What did I say, Scully?"  
  
"You know I'm the only person you could safely ask that question, Mulder".  
  
Despite his headache, Mulder had to smile.  
  
"I guess. So why did you ring me up, Scully?" he said. "Apart from missing the sound of my voice, of course, or maybe just not wanting me to oversleep".  
  
"Well, I've been checking up on these people you asked about. It's really rather interesting. This Buffy Summers of yours seems to have a history of psychiatric problems from when she lived down in LA. She was in a clinic for a couple of weeks, on a voluntary basis, when she was fourteen. And she apparently burned down her high school, Hemery High, or at least part of it - the gym. She claimed she was fighting vampires. She was expelled - no great surprise there, really, in the circumstances. Then her parents split up. That's why they moved to Sunnydale - just about a year ago".  
  
Now it was Mulder's turn to laugh out loud.  
  
"Vampires? Everyone knows there are no such things as vampires, Scully. People's belief in things like that is just a way of rationalizing their fears of the unknown. Creatures of the night don't really exist - while we know that alien visitors do. And that they're here. And now I've actually met two of them".  
  
"Well, there was something else that was strange as well, Mulder. Or rather, two things", Scully continued. "I checked in our files to see if there was anything more about Sunnydale, and it turns out that some agents were sent up there from the LA office about six months ago to collect a recruit for a special project. There weren't any details, just the name Marcie Ross. And guess which two agents were part of that operation? Our pair of lost sheep".  
  
"Really? Hm, very interesting. And the other?" Mulder asked, intrigued, his headache almost forgotten.  
  
"The teacher you met. Rupert Giles. English. The school's librarian, I think you said. You thought you'd met him somewhere before".  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"There's a file on him, but it's black-flagged. I don't know what that signifies - I've never come across one of those before - but I wasn't able to get into it".  
  
"Hm. That is very strange. Was there any trouble when you tried to open it?"  
  
"Well, yes, there was. Walter Skinner came down in person about five minutes later and wanted to know what I was doing. I explained I was doing some follow-up research for you, and he ordered me to leave it strictly alone. Again, no explanations".  
  
Mulder stared at the wall, thinking.  
  
"Shall I tell him you've found the missing agents?" Scully said eventually.  
  
"No. Not yet", Mulder said slowly. "I think I want to find out some more about what's going on here. Particularly about this Mr. Rupert Giles".  
  
"OK then. But I'm going to get permission from Skinner to fly out and join you - you obviously need backup. I'm beginning to think you're right - something strange does seem to be happening there, Mulder, though you know my opinion on the subject of aliens. Anyway, no matter what Skinner says, I should arrive this evening", Scully said firmly.  
  
Mulder thought about that for a moment or two. Although he wouldn't admit it, even to himself, he was missing Scully, and he would certainly prefer working with his partner to being on his own in this peculiar little town.  
  
"OK", he said, and smiled again. "Just don't talk to any strange men".

* * *

END OF PART 4. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	5. Overground, Underground

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 5: "Overground, Underground...""Giles, what are we going to do about the G-man?"  
  
"Well, Buffy, he is going to be a problem - unless we can dispose of those two vampire agents".  
  
"Before they get him", said Willow. "He obviously has no idea what he's got mixed up in".  
  
"Right", said Xander. "He'll just go right up to them next time he sees them, and say 'neat trick with the face guys. Howdja do it?' And they'll say 'observe, grasshopper' and wammo, three wise monkeys, instead of just two".  
  
"With a side order of extra-shiny, pointy teeth. I hear ya".  
  
"So I think an expedition underground is in order, don't you?", Giles said. "And the sooner the better".  
  
"Tonight would be good", said Buffy, "even though it is a school night. Either we go early, and I can get home before curfew, mission accomplished, or alternatively we go later, when I do my usual Tarzan act down the pine tree outside my window, and we meet on the corner of Hadley and Crestview. How does that sound?"   
  
She looked at the others. Only Cordelia didn't seem happy.  
  
"I need my eight hours regular", she complained. "Going out on patrol till all hours does my skin condition no good at all".  
  
"Except for when you're partying late, of course", Xander pointed out.  
  
"An accelerated heart rate, such as caused by dancing, and boys, is beneficial to the complexion", Willow volunteered. "Or... or so I'm told".  
  
"Yes, well, with any luck we should be able to provide Cordelia with an accelerated heart rate tonight when we hit the bad guys", Giles said, looking over his glasses at her. "Still, I can quite see that a lady must get her beauty sleep".  
  
"Right", said Xander. "We'll just get on with the slaying, and tell you tomorrow about all the fun you missed".  
  
"Fun?" Cordelia's voice went up half an octave - she could have screeched for the USA. "All sweaty, and running, and fangs, and fighting, and wet shoes, and torn clothes, and tunnels, and cobwebs? Oh, please. Ewww, or what!"  
  
"How very eloquent", said Giles. "I must try to remember that speech verbatim for the Watcher's Diary. Shakespeare, eat your heart out".  
  
Cordelia sighed.  
  
"All right. I'll be there, but I'm driving myself in my daddy's car. I don't get my own until my next birthday".  
  
"You know what?" said Willow. The others looked at her expectantly.  
  
"What with Giles's Citroen, I think we just got us a convoy".  
  
-----  
  
"That's him!"  
  
"He's wearing a tweed jacket. In California!" Scully shook her head, scandalised. "You were right, Mulder, there is something strange about the man - he's an out and out eccentric".  
  
"He's a librarian. But that is really what's so strange, Scully. What is an Englishman doing working in a small town like Sunnydale, when he has a black flagged file? What does it signify?"  
  
"Shouldn't we be following them?"  
  
Mulder did a hasty U-turn and dimmed his lights. The Jeep Cherokee and the foreign car were safely down the road, but driving well within the speed limit, so they had no problem keeping them in sight. Instead it was rather difficult to go slow enough not to attract their attention by catching up with them.  
  
"It looks as if they're heading for the place where I encountered our two missing people last night. 'The Lawns', I think it's called".  
  
Scully scanned the street map spread out across the dashboard, and Mulder reached over and put his finger firmly on a square.  
  
"It's there, downtown on Whedon Street. I spent this afternoon, while I was waiting for you to arrive, memorizing the layout of the whole town. It's not a very big place but I didn't want to risk getting lost again".  
  
-----  
  
"Sshh! Give me the crowbar".  
  
"Hey, it's my crowbar. I'll lever up the manhole cover!"  
  
Giles shrugged and moved out of Xander's way. If the boy wanted to show off his muscles in front of the girls that was up to him.  
  
"What's taking so long? I thought we wanted to surprise them".  
  
"Keep your voice down, Cordelia, or they'll be ready and waiting for us".  
  
"And it'll be all your fault", Xander hissed, straining at the crowbar, which was not having much effect in shifting the manhole cover.   
  
Buffy reached past him and casually added her strength. The fifty pound piece of cast metal flew up and thudded over onto the turf, narrowly missing the toes of Cordelia's trendy thigh length boots. She gave a little suppressed squeak and leaped back.  
  
"I didn't need any help, Buff, I nearly had it", Xander said plaintively. "It was just starting to shift".  
  
"I know. I'm sorry", Buffy told him, "I was just trying to be helpful".   
  
She realised she could have hurt his feelings by so easily doing something he was struggling with. Sometimes she found it really difficult to stand by and not use her super strength to help people.   
  
'It must be like that for Clark Kent too,' she told herself. 'I wonder how he manages?' and she sighed quietly. 'It's not so easy being The Slayer'.  
  
The title of a song she hadn't heard for a while slipped irreverently into her mind - 'It's Not Easy Being Green'.  
  
'Move over Kermit, and make room for Buffy Summers', she thought.  
  
Giles snapped his fingers once to attract everyone's attention to the job in hand. Buffy silently stepped forwards, sat on the edge of the dark square hole for a moment, and then dropped out of sight. Not wanting to be outdone, Xander followed her in much the same manner. A thud and a muffled "Ow!" told them he'd successfully arrived at the bottom. After passing down the weapons bag, Giles, Cordelia and Willow more sensibly descended using the metal ladder.  
  
"Now what?" whispered Scully.  
  
-----  
  
The two FBI agents were thirty yards away, hiding in a clump of laurel bushes beside a large mausoleum.  
  
"We wait".  
  
"What if they come out somewhere else?"  
  
"What if they don't?" Mulder responded with a slight smile.  
  
-----  
  
"Turn off the flashlight!"  
  
"It is off, Giles - that glow's coming from up around the bend", Buffy said quietly. She passed the flashlight back, and the next person did the same until it arrived at the tail end of the procession, in the hands of Cordelia.  
  
"What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked in a stage whisper.  
  
"Keep an eye on our rear", Giles told her.  
  
"Oh, pleeeeese!" she responded. "Gross!"  
  
Giles looked round at her, slightly surprised, and then silently pointed back the way they'd come.  
  
"Our rear", he said quietly. "Keep looking back. We don't want anyone sneaking up behind us out of the dark. It's a very responsible job, Cordelia", he added.   
  
In front of him he could hear Willow desperately struggling not to laugh, and he shook his head and straightened his glasses.  
  
-----  
  
"Someone's coming".  
  
Mulder and Scully kept perfectly still as three tall, approximately human-shaped figures came padding quietly across the grass between the gravestones, and approached the manhole. It was difficult to see properly in the dim light away from the path, but Mulder felt his heart start to race.  
  
They really did not look quite right - for a start their bodily proportions were all wrong, with short, thick, powerful looking legs, long torsos, and arms that almost reached the ground, like apes. And then again, people did not usually have shiny, bright blue-green scales for skin. Neither was it common to have great knobbly crests on top of their heads. Besides which, they were each at least seven feet in height, and very obviously had not a stitch of clothing on between them.  
  
One of them stopped, lifted its head and peered all around, sniffing the air like a hunting beast. As it did so the moonlight illuminated its face and Mulder heard Scully give a quiet gasp of surprise.  
  
"What on earth are they?" she whispered.  
  
Mulder shook his head, unable to make any other response. For the moment he was effectively dumbstruck.  
  
"I don't think I'd like to meet one of those on a dark night", Scully added with unconscious humour.  
  
There was a moment or two's pause while they silently continued to observe the creatures.   
  
Then Scully said quietly "Now I think I really have seen everything. I'm going to have to apologise to you in six different positions, aren't I?"  
  
"'As the actress said to the bishop'", Mulder murmured.  
  
Scully punched him gently on the arm. "I heard that", she whispered back.  
  
Mulder smiled and said nothing, just continued watching the new arrivals, absolutely fascinated.  
  
It was quite obvious that the creatures were not even remotely human. Beside their unusual body proportions, they had large, peculiarly shaped eyes, much larger than normal. In the quick glimpse the two agents got, it was apparent that they were also an odd colour - pure yellow throughout, without a separately coloured iris - and had unusual triangular pupils, unlike any animal either of them had ever seen before.  
  
All three creatures were armed with exotic, antique weapons. They each carried ornate swords, and one of them also had some sort of spiked metal club, one a wicked looking axe and the third a short stabbing spear.   
  
The one that had sniffed the air, Mulder thought of it as being the leader, spoke to the others in a guttural language that did not sound like anything he had ever heard before. It pointed into the manhole. The others grunted briefly, and one after the other the three of them jumped straight into it without even looking to see where they would land.  
  
-----  
  
"Well, now I know I've seen everything. Were those like the aliens you saw last night, Mulder?" Scully sounded really quite composed about what she'd just observed, all things considered.  
  
Mulder shook his head again.  
  
"Nothing like, at all", he replied quietly, which greatly surprised her. "Sorry. My two started out looking exactly like real people, and then they changed, but not into anything like those three. They're a whole other ball game. I think they must be a completely different type altogether.   
  
"You've got to admit, though, they really do look like what people expect aliens to be like", he added.   
  
Scully shook her head, still feeling confused. She thought that he too sounded amazingly calm about it all, under the circumstances. There was a short lull in the conversation.  
  
"So what do we do now?" she said eventually.  
  
"I think we might wait for a couple more minutes - give them a bit of a head start - and then follow them to try and find out what's really going on. We're going to have to be pretty cautious..."  
  
-----  
  
"Giles!"  
  
"Sshh!"  
  
"Giles!!"  
  
"Sshh, Cordelia!!"  
  
"Giles!!!"  
  
Rupert Giles felt something hard poke him where the sun doesn't shine. He looked round over his shoulder and realised it was the expedition's flashlight, carried by Cordelia.  
  
"What???!!!" he said as forcefully as he could without raising his voice above a whisper, but Cordelia wasn't looking his way. She was looking anxiously back over her shoulder into the dark.  
  
"Giles, I just heard something behind us!!!"  
  
He listened carefully but could hear nothing, and scowled at her.  
  
"I did!!" she squeaked indignantly.  
  
He shook his head and turned away, to find Buffy looking intently back past him.  
  
"I think there's somebody behind us", she said.

* * *

END OF PART 5. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	6. Three's A Crowd

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 6: "Three's a Crowd".

"This tunnel's larger than I expected, Scully. Too big for just a storm drain, surely? If I was a couple of inches shorter I could stand completely upright".  
  
"Can you see anything, Mulder?"  
  
He shook his head, moved to one side so that Scully could look past him for herself, and made a sign to remind her to stay quiet. From somewhere up in front of them they could hear voices, but not really clearly enough to be able to make out what was being said - the speakers were out of sight, and their voices too muffled by distance and confused by echoes. Cautiously they moved forwards to follow the gradual right-hand bend of the tunnel, hoping to get close enough to hear what was being said.  
  
Some way ahead they could see the figures of the creatures they were now following. All three were stooping due to their considerable height, and were silhouetted by a faint glow from beyond them, where the voices were coming from.  
  
"Can you see anything, Buffy?"   
  
That was a man's voice, in a sort of stage whisper, with what sounded like an English accent - obviously the librarian, Mr. Rupert Giles.   
  
'Rupert? What sort of a stupid name is that, anyway?' Mulder thought to himself. A girl's voice replied, equally quietly.  
  
"No, not behind us, but I think there's a nest just up ahead, Giles, although I can't see any of them yet. Is everybody ready? OK, I'll lead off". That definitely sounded like the blonde one, Buffy. It also sounded as if she was acting as the leader.  
  
Mulder wondered what sort of creature might make its nest underground in a storm drain. What were these people hunting for? Was it perhaps the three supposed aliens, or something else? In either case things were about to get very interesting, to say the least.  
  
The two agents heard subdued responses in the affirmative, followed by a growl from one of the creatures just up ahead.  
  
"I told you there was something behind us", another girl said anxiously. She sounded pretty nervous.  
  
"OK, so you were right for once, Cordelia. Score one for you", they heard Buffy say, a bit louder now that they had obviously lost the element of surprise. "Guys, can you keep them busy while I see what we have here?"  
  
Mulder and Scully saw the three monsters just ahead of them raise their antique but perfectly effective weapons and trot forward out of sight round the bend. They looked at each other for a moment in the deep gloom, and then moved cautiously forward to follow them.  
  
-----  
  
"Hey, Buff. Look out! We've definitely got company back here. Demons, three of 'em, big ugly ones!" Xander exclaimed.  
  
"Uh oh, change of plan, then!" Buffy said quickly, and spun round to face the rapidly advancing newcomers.  
  
Giles hastily dumped the weapons bag and pulled out an axe, which he quickly tossed to Xander, and then produced a long broadsword for himself. Willow and Cordelia scuttled round behind them, one still holding their flashlight, the other a temporarily redundant stake, while Buffy cocked her crossbow.  
  
Giles raised his sword, and Buffy was sure she heard him mutter, "For what we are about to receive..." Then the three demons were on them.  
  
Buffy took aim at the biggest one, in the centre, but just as she squeezed the trigger Xander took a wild swing with his axe, and in the narrow space in the tunnel with the three of them side-by-side, his backstroke jogged her elbow and the bolt went high over the demons' heads, bounced off the curved roof beyond them, and disappeared out of sight into the darkness. She swore - there wasn't time to reload, so she simply dropped the crossbow and waded in with her bare fists.  
  
The humans did have one advantage - their relatively small size. In the centre of the tunnel Giles and Xander could stand almost fully upright, whereas the three demons, at approximately seven feet tall, were severely hampered by having to stoop to avoid hitting the roof with the crests on the tops of their heads, and had barely enough room to swing their weapons without risking hitting each other.  
  
"Aim low, go for their legs", Giles shouted, and slashed at the biggest. There was a bellow of pain and it staggered back.  
  
Xander didn't hear the advice, but was doing pretty well on his own account, getting in close under his opponent's sword, swinging wildly and causing considerable damage. The demon's scaly skin was leathery, and hard to pierce, but a razor sharp axe is a tough weapon to resist at close quarters.  
  
Buffy was also having some success in drawing dark blood from her opponent, principally by punching it repeatedly on its strangely shaped nose, not a mode of fighting it seemed to be familiar with. She varied this with some martial arts kicks aimed low down, where both vampire or human would normally be particularly sensitive, but for some reason this wasn't having quite the desired effect, so she quickly switched tactics and went directly for its weapon. In just a few seconds the demon found itself on entirely the wrong end of its own sword (from its point of view), and not at all happy about the situation!  
  
-----  
  
Scully tugged at Mulder's sleeve.  
  
"Keep back, Mulder. We don't want any of them to know we're here".  
  
"I don't think we should just leave them to it. We have to help them".  
  
"The humans seem to be doing pretty well under the circumstances, Mulder. It looks like the monsters that are coming off second-best".  
  
"That's what I'm worried about, Scully - it's the monsters I'm thinking of. And I still believe we should think of them as some sort of aliens, not monsters. They're obviously intelligent beings, whatever they are..."  
  
"Dangerous is what they are, Mulder" Scully hissed. "They're carrying lethal weapons. I know people are in danger, but we don't know what's actually happening".  
  
"Well we can't just stay back here and risk letting any of them be killed, Scully. Not even the creatures, whatever they really are. They're all part of whatever the hell strange goings-on are... er... going on in this town. We have to stop the fight somehow".  
  
"Keep your voice down, Mulder. One of them might hear you".  
  
"Over this row? Not much chance of that!"  
  
Then, without any warning, Mulder stood up and turned on his own flashlight. The he waved it about vigorously, as if to deliberately attract attention.   
  
Scully quickly grabbed at his sleeve again, trying to pull him back down into concealment.  
  
"What are you doing, Mulder? They'll see you".  
  
"That's the idea - to distract them. I want to break up the fight, and I think showing ourselves is probably the best way to do it".  
  
Scully sighed and got to her feet beside him. This did not seem to be a very good idea to her. It certainly wasn't what they had originally planned, but she supposed Mulder was right about one thing - they had to find out what the hell was going on. To do that they had to be able to ask people questions, and to do that there had to be people still alive to talk to. Or live monsters, or aliens, or even (the horrible thought suddenly occurred to her), god forbid, people in Halloween alien suits from a costume hire shop. And if that last idea turned out to be the case, someone was going to look remarkably stupid. And if that person turned out to be Dana Scully, then she was going to make quite certain that one Fox Mulder was going to regret even getting up this morning. Period.  
  
-----  
  
"Hey! You there. This is the FBI! Throw down your weapons!"  
  
"What the...?"  
  
"Look out, Xander!" Willow shouted, and he ducked to avoid a jab of the spear wielded by one of the demons, grabbed it, and kicked out hard at its kneecap. The creature gave a pained bellow and let go. Xander tossed the spear over to Buffy who swapped it for the sword she was using, and then he took another vigorous swing with his axe. Disarmed, the monster backed up, reluctantly giving ground, and he swung again, taking a step forward as he did so. It retreated again.  
  
Buffy jabbed at the demon opposing her, which also withdrew a pace or two.  
  
Giles, distracted by the shout from along the tunnel, missed his stroke, but his opponent also took the opportunity to move back a few feet.  
  
"Come on, they're retreating. Keep at it!" he shouted. "Never mind who's back there".  
  
"Is it the seventh cavalry? Maybe they're out on night manoeuvres", Buffy said between jabs with the spear.  
  
"No, it's only the fifth. And I think they very sensibly left their horses behind", Xander responded, wielding his axe vigorously.  
  
"I bet it's that bloody government agent we keep bumping into, well that Buffy does, anyway. He must have followed us down here, stupid man", Giles grunted between sword swings.  
  
There was another shout in the distance, and the leader of the demons suddenly seemed to realise they were trapped between two forces. It turned abruptly, and began to run from the Slayer and her friends, straight towards the voice beyond, followed closely by its two companions.  
  
"Hey, they're giving up! Come on, we can chase them right out of the tunnel", Xander said.  
  
"They're going to run straight into that government idiot", said Giles.  
  
"So?" said Buffy, lowering her spear, a little out of breath. "He can look after himself, surely? He'll have a gun".  
  
"Almost certainly", Giles replied, "but he's outnumbered. And you don't seriously think a few little bullets are going to be enough to stop those three, do you?"  
  
"Oh. Hadn't thought of that. Not good. Hey, guess we'd better go lend a hand, then?"  
  
The words were hardly out of her mouth when another voice, this time a woman's, also called to the creatures to halt and throw down their weapons. After a few seconds this was followed by one warning shot, and then a whole fusillade.  
  
The Slayerettes unanimously hurled themselves down into the dirt and puddles on the floor of the storm drain as bullets spanged dramatically about over their heads. Xander clung fervently to the nearest person, who happened to be Giles, while Buffy quickly rolled over to shield Willow, and Cordelia cowered behind all of them, shrieking. Above the row, Giles heard someone in the distance shouting to a second person to get back down the tunnel to the ladder, and the three demons howled their anger and chased after them.  
  
A last bullet whined overhead, ricocheted crisply twice and bounced metallically a couple of times on the floor of the tunnel.  
  
Cordelia screamed shrilly.  
  
"I've been hit. I've been wounded. I'm bleeding! I'm dying!"  
  
Giles cautiously lifted his head to check the tunnel, detached himself from Xander's clutches, and crawled over to her to check for injuries.  
  
"Hey! Hands! Hands, mister!" Cordelia suddenly exclaimed, to his surprise.   
  
"Can't see any injuries from here", Buffy told him. "Where were you hit, Cordy?"  
  
"In the shoulder. I'm going to die, aren't I? Oh God, I'm still a virgin and I'm going to die without ever having done it".  
  
"Oh, gross! T.M.I., T.M.I.!!" Willow exclaimed, covering her ears with her hands. Then she added, "I can't see any blood".  
  
"A virgin? That's not what it says on the wall in the men's room at school", Xander muttered quietly to himself, but luckily no one else noticed.  
  
"I was hit", Cordelia insisted. "I'm dying!"  
  
"A dying duck's more like it!" Giles told her scathingly. "Look, here's the bullet - it was spent, and just dropped onto you and then fell to the ground".  
  
"Boy, are you lucky", Xander said. "Can I have it as a souvenir?"  
  
"Hell, no!" exclaimed Cordelia, sitting up smartly and grabbing it off Giles. "You get yourself shot and get your own damned souvenir. Or even better, just get shot! Do us all a favour!"  
  
"Children, children!" Giles said wearily, standing up again. "Please don't bicker. We've got to go and be the seventh cavalry ourselves, now. There seem to be at least two FBI agents who currently need rescuing from nasty scaly blue-green demons before they come to a sticky end without even knowing what hit them".  
  
"Hopefully we can achieve that without them even finding out", Buffy said optimistically, bouncing to her feet. "Come on, gang. We have things to do and people to see - like monsters to fight, and morons to save".  
  
"What about the vampires we were really after?" Willow asked.  
  
"You don't seriously think they're still hanging around after all this racket do you, Will?"  
  
"We'll have to leave them for tomorrow night", Giles told her. "Buffy's right, they're long gone by now, if they know what's good for them".   
  
"Yay for me! Saddle up, guys! Hiyo Silver, away!"  
  
Giles shook his head, brushing the dirt from his jacket as he followed the four youngsters.  
  
'I'm getting too old for this', he told himself. 'Sod the bloody FBI!'

* * *

END OF PART 6. TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Scary Monsters

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 7: "Scary Monsters".  
  
"Get up the ladder, quick!"  
  
Mulder hurriedly glanced back over his shoulder at the three tall creatures shambling rapidly towards them out of the gloom down in the tunnel, and gave Scully a mighty boost that shot her up and out of the manhole, to send her sprawling on the grass in the moonlight. Then he lunged for the bottom rung and desperately started to haul himself up the ladder out of reach.  
  
Just as he neared the top, something sharp sliced a piece off the heel of his shoe and nicked his calf. Swearing under his breath, he scrambled up the last few rungs, fell out of the manhole onto his knees, and staggered away after his partner, fumbling in his pocket for the spare magazine for his pistol. He looked back for his pursuer, the top half of which, or whom, was already visible above the ground waving its sword, and realised with a nasty sinking feeling that the shiny little rectangular object he could just make out on the grass between them was his extra ammunition clip.  
  
Scully fumbled with her own reload, aimed and fired once. He supposed it must have missed, because it had no visible effect. She tried to steady her breathing, squeezed the trigger again carefully, but nothing happened - her gun had jammed.  
  
"Run, Mulder!"  
  
Now all three of the monsters were above ground, so the two agents turned and fled, and the creatures came lumbering after them.   
  
"Where did we leave the car?"  
  
Mulder pointed a little to their right, where he could see the cemetery gates in the distance, and they both changed direction.  
  
"I can't believe this is really happening - it's like something out of one of your old horror movies!" Scully exclaimed breathlessly. "And I think they're catching up with us".  
  
"Don't talk. Keep going! Run!" Mulder panted, weaving between the burial plots like a football player dodging through the opposition, going for a touchdown.  
  
"Anyway, which horror picture were you thinking of?" he added as they ran. "One of the old British 'Hammer Films' ones?"  
  
Unfortunately, it's never a good idea to be thinking about one small insignificant matter while you're doing something else of life-and-death importance, as Mulder was suddenly reminded.  
  
He tripped over a gravestone and fell heavily.   
  
Scully turned back to grab him by the arm and help him up... and found herself face to face with the leading creature.  
  
Despite the poor light, she could see every detail of its reptilian skin - very like a lizard's but with tufts of wiry hair poking out here and there between the scales, and it seemed to have a sort of acrid smell, a little like scorched plastic perhaps. Its peculiar yellow triangular-pupilled eyes stared down at her from its great height, and a chill went up her spine, right to the top of her scalp.  
  
She couldn't move.  
  
Time froze.  
  
The thing opened its mouth very wide and seemed to grin - she saw acres of teeth like ivory daggers, and then she was enveloped by a waft of bad breath that could have killed at forty paces. Slowly it lifted its sword, preparing to strike... and then, with a good solid thud, a spear point suddenly appeared, sticking at least two feet right out from its chest.  
  
The creature looked down, gave a sort of plaintive, astonished grunt, and fell forward flat on its excruciatingly ugly face, stone dead, right on top of her.  
  
"Yay! B-bulls eye!" someone exclaimed nearby - a girl's voice.  
  
"Hey! I'm not playing you at darts again, Buffy. It would be no contest!" someone else responded, a young man this time.  
  
"Damn, I'm good though, aren't I?" That was another girl.  
  
The last thought floating through Scully's mind as she passed out was 'Looks like the cavalry's here!'  
  
-----  
  
"'Ware the others!" Xander said sharply, and the Slayerettes quickly turned and split into two groups - Buffy and Xander as one, Giles, Willow and Cordelia the other.  
  
The demon facing Giles raised its weapon, a vicious short-handled battleaxe, and with room now to swing freely, Giles hacked and slashed vigorously at it with his own sword. The creature's left arm flew off, severed just above the elbow, and went cart-wheeling away into the shadows, spraying and spattering everyone within reach with bright green blood as it went, at least Willow supposed she must think of it as blood.   
  
Cordelia gave a little shriek of rage and disgust at the mess it suddenly made of her clothes, so angry that any actual words she tried to utter were completely incoherent.  
  
Giles slowly drew back his long broadsword again, and with a big, big smile said "Now sonny, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it's going to hurt me!"   
  
The astonished demon looked up from the raw spurting stump of its arm. Giles' sword cut through the cool night air with a sharp whizzing sound which ended in a dull 'Thwump', and the creature's head shot right up high into the air, came down and bounced a couple of times, and finally rolled to a halt right at Mulder's feet.  
  
"Wow! Conan the Librarian! Way cool, or what?" Xander exclaimed, much impressed.  
  
"Buffy, look out!" Willow said quickly. There was an enraged bellow from behind her, and Buffy hastily turned back from watching Giles to find that her own opponent had just yanked a headstone right up out of the ground. It raised the thing over its head and hurled it - straight towards Agent Fox Mulder!  
  
There was really only one thing Buffy could do - she leaped forwards and caught it in mid-flight! She clutched it to her chest, staggered back several paces, and then slowly straightened up.  
  
She glanced down at herself, and then at the inscription on the slab, and then she looked the amazed demon straight in the eye.  
  
"Now I'm slightly annoyed", she said quietly. "You know who's this is? It's Principal Flutie's. There was little enough of him left in the first place, but nooo-ooo... you couldn't leave well alone, could you? You had to pull up his grave marker, you... you... vandal!" She almost spat the word out at the demon.  
  
"And while we're about it", she added, her voice rising a little in pitch, "there's another thing. I only bought this top this afternoon after school. It's brand new, and now it's completely ruined! Ruined! What have you got to say for yourself about that? Am I going to get an apology out of you before I kill you?"  
  
Baffled, the creature could only snarl at her - "Grrrrrr!"  
  
"I thought not! Right", said Buffy, now sounding dangerously calm. "If that's all you've got to say for yourself, mister ugly, here's your gravestone back!" and she raised the slab high over her head and smashed the thing into its face. There was a muffled "Aaaaaargh!" and the third and last demon fell over backwards, utterly crushed.  
  
"Yay! Goodies 3, Baddies 0!" exclaimed Xander.  
  
Giles, Willow, and even Cordelia (distracted for one moment from her own fashion woes) stood and clapped enthusiastically.  
  
"That's the way to do it!" Buffy said, dusting her hands on the seat of her pants, not even slightly out of breath. "Ugly brutes, aren't they? Any idea what sort they are, Giles?"  
  
Her Watcher gazed at the remains strewn about like the debris of a very good party, and shook his head.  
  
"No. I don't recognise the type at all. I'll have to have a session with my reference books later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow. I'm sure they're only minor - they didn't even seem to have any proper speech so far as I could tell".  
  
"B-but do you think they were after us, or just happened to be passing by?" said Willow.  
  
"I'll bet they were called up and set on us by those two vamps we were hunting", Xander said. "Something to keep us occupied while they get up to mischief somewhere else".  
  
Buffy nodded, looking thoughtful.  
  
"You mean it was... Oh, what's the word I want? Um, Giles, help me out here will you, please? I keep thinking of a detour, but I'm sure that's not the right word".   
  
Mildly concerned, the Watcher looked at his Slayer thoughtfully for a moment, wondering if perhaps the impact of the gravestone had caught her on the head.   
  
"I think you might mean a diversion, my dear", he suggested quietly.  
  
"One of them. Right. Whatever".  
  
Xander contemplated the two FBI agents still sprawled on the neatly mown grass.  
  
"Perhaps these two guys could tell us", he said.  
  
-----  
  
Scully came-to slowly. It was still night-time, and she found that her head was resting comfortably in someone's lap. It's owner, a long-haired teenage girl, a red head like herself, was looking down at her with a gently concerned expression. Around her were several other young people. She supposed they were all members of the group who'd been down in the tunnel. Strangely, they too seemed to be carrying antique weapons.  
  
Her partner, Mulder, was kneeling on the grass beside her, also looking anxious, and there was another older man, who wore glasses, standing just behind him.  
  
"What happened? Sorry, stupid question, I know".  
  
"That's all right. It's traditional", the older man reassured her. He had a rather nice English accent, she thought irrelevantly.  
  
"Hi, ma'am. I'm Willow. And these are my friends - Buffy and Xander and Cordelia. How are you feeling, now?" the red headed girl said. "Are you hurt"?  
  
Scully smiled up at her rather weakly, and tried to sit up. Mulder put out a hand to help her.  
  
"Hi, Willow. I'm Dana Scully. I'm OK, thank you. Honestly, Mulder, I am - just a bit winded perhaps. Really, I'm fine - I think".  
  
She looked round, and there on the grass a few feet away the glazed dead eyes of the second monster stared in her direction, looking blankly somewhere a little over her shoulder. She shuddered.  
  
"Ugh! Now I remember! What the hell is that thing? Not an actual alien, surely?" she asked Mulder quietly.  
  
"We know Agent Mouldy came here expecting to find aliens and flying saucers", the blonde girl said. She was standing with hands on hips, silhouetted dramatically by the cemetery's lights behind her.  
  
Mulder looked up at her quickly. He recognised her as the girl Buffy Summers, who he'd spoken with the evening before. Then he realised that all five of them were exactly the same group of people he'd met out in the country two days back.  
  
"How did you know about that?"  
  
"We heard you talking. To Tweeedledum and Tweedledee", she replied. "But these are not aliens".  
  
"At least, not in the sense you were thinking", the red headed girl called Willow said.  
  
'So it was you last night', thought Mulder. 'I wonder who the heavy was?'  
  
"Well", said Scully, "if those aren't aliens, then what the hell are they?"  
  
The man with the glasses started to say something. Scully now recognised him as the teacher Mr Giles, who she'd first seen in his car, driving by only about half an hour before - who wore a tweed jacket even in early fall in California. However, the boy called Xander interrupted him.  
  
"Monsters, demons. They're the sort of things you believed lived under your bed when you were little. When you grew up you thought you knew better, but you were wrong. They are real - they actually exist".  
  
"And you'd better watch out, because there are other things, too", the red head added cheerfully.  
  
"Be afraid, be very afraid", the teenage boy said in a mock solemn tone.  
  
Then the third girl, whose long dark hair was covered in a strange green slime, said in a snippy tone of voice "So what's your problem? Have you never seen a demon before?"  
  
Mulder cautiously reached out to touch the nearest huge, scaly corpse, as if wanting to check it was real, and he slowly shook his head.  
  
"Not even a dead one".  
  
Everyone instantly came back with the same response:  
  
"Best sort".

* * *

END OF PART 7. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	8. Interview With A Vampire Slayer Pt 1

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 8: "Interview With A Vampire Slayer, Pt 1". "What the hell are you going to do with that 'thing', Scully?"  
  
"Dissect it. If I leave it until morning it will probably have rotted away completely".  
  
"It smells as though it's well on the way already. Did you have to unwrap it here in my room?"  
  
"The refrigerator in mine isn't working, Mulder, and I need to examine the specimen as thoroughly as I can before it disintegrates. Did you bring a camera with you?"  
  
"No, sorry. We'll just have to improvise. I think they might have some of those disposable ones for sale at Reception. I'll go and get one, shall I?"  
  
"Yes, but make it several. It's going to be a long session, and then, don't forget, in the morning we have to go and interview those kids and their librarian".  
  
Shaking his head, Mulder wandered off to find the front desk, which was in the owner's house, about fifty yards up the hill from the motel cabins, but Scully couldn't understand why he was laughing quietly to himself when he came back.  
  
"What's so funny, then?" She didn't look up.  
  
"You should have seen the proprietor's face when I said I wanted half a dozen of his disposable cameras at half past one in the morning. I could tell exactly what he was thinking".  
  
There was a loud snort from Scully who had her back to him, bending over the specimen they'd retrieved from the fight in the cemetery - the severed head of a demon - or alien, or whatever it might actually turn out to be.  
  
"We won't exactly be taking the sort of pictures he's thinking of, but it will be an all-nighter", she said. Then after a moment or two she continued, "I actually need some forceps, but I guess I could make do with a pair of pliers. Is there a tool kit in your car?"  
  
Mulder went out without a word and brought back what seemed to be almost the entire contents of the trunk with him, dumped everything in a heap in the corner of the room, and had a good rummage round until he found what Scully wanted.  
  
"You could also help by taking notes for me", she then added.  
  
Without comment Mulder dug in his bag and produced a large yellow legal pad and a shiny new ballpoint to write with.  
  
Scully noticed its glint out of the corner of her eye, looked round, smiled and said "Parker?"  
  
"Yes, M'Lady".  
  
-----  
  
"What's the sitch, Giles? What are we going to tell them?"  
  
"I don't really know, Buffy - preferably as little as possible - they know far too much already. If we aren't careful about what we say, the whole town might end up being flooded with FBI and Special Forces, and all Hell could break loose".  
  
"What, again? Can't say I like that idea, much. At least at the moment we've got things under control here, more or less..."  
  
"...But if they start interfering, well..." Giles shrugged.  
  
"These two have seen so much that they're practically honorary Slayerettes already", Willow observed. "Any more and we'll have to form an official club, and have a president, a membership secretary, and a secret handshake".  
  
"Not even that'll stay secret for long round here, now", Xander muttered to himself.  
  
"God forbid", said Giles, appalled. "Belonging to one secret organisation is more than enough for me. If the Watchers' Council ever find out about last night they'll go... Well, I really don't know quite what they'll do. It's strictly against the Council's Charter to discuss things with anyone who isn't either a Council member, a Watcher or a Slayer. Even the rest of you aren't really supposed to be aware of who Buffy is or what we do, and most especially why".  
  
He sounded and looked worried, repeatedly taking off his glasses and starting to polish them vigorously, then forgetting what he was doing.  
  
"Well, we do know, and there's nothing they can do about it, is there?" Willow said firmly.  
  
"And we help Buffy, watch her back, help out with the slaying and stuff", Xander pointed out. "We've each dusted a few vamps, and dealt with a demon or two, just on our own without the Buffster, like when she's been busy elsewhere, or... you know... away. After all, even the Slayer can't be in two places at once".  
  
"Hey, I help too, don't I?" Cordelia demanded.   
  
"Yes, absolutely, Cordy, even when you are covered in green goo. We rely on you for fashion tips, what today's 'in' style of dagger is, colour co-ordinating, all that sort of thing", Xander said.  
  
"Like what goes with slime green, for instance", Willow added wickedly, and ducked behind Xander, out of her reach.  
  
"Please be serious, all of you", Giles said. "These people could be here any minute, and we haven't even thought about what we say, or don't".  
  
"We'll just have to wait for them to turn up, and see what questions they ask us", Willow said sensibly.  
  
"And for goodness sake..." Giles started to say.  
  
"...Nobody mention the Hellmouth!" everyone else said together.  
  
As if on cue, the library doors swung open with a bang, and a short, angry, self-important, bald little man stood there, looking exactly like a bad-tempered garden gnome who's just had his fishing rod stolen. Behind him were a vaguely embarrassed looking couple, who they recognised immediately.   
  
Principal Snyder marched in like a stunted storm trooper and stamped to a halt in front of the little group.   
  
"Well, well, well. Here's Mr. Giles and friends. Particularly one young friend", he barked. "Miss Summers, you've only been back two weeks and already the FBI wants to talk to you".  
  
-----  
  
"She is merely assisting the FBI with their enquiries", Giles said stiffly, using a very British turn of phrase. Unfortunately it wasn't a particularly good choice of words - in Britain, at least, it is a euphemism for being detained for questioning.  
  
Almost as if he knew that, Principal Snyder's baleful scowl was transformed instantly to a fiendish grin of delight. He was like an alley cat for whom someone had just put down a whole roast chicken smothered in double cream. He looked so pleased with himself that even his back teeth got to see daylight.  
  
"Yes, Principal Snyder. They've come to interview us because they think I may have seen the missing agents they're looking for".  
  
The words came straight out of Buffy's mouth without any intervention from her brain, and it was pure delight (for all of them) to see Snyder's expression suddenly change in a couple of seconds through suspicion, dismay, shock, and confusion to baffled disappointment, as, once again, his hopes of fulfilling his ambition to find an excuse for expelling her suddenly receded into the distance like a land speed record attempt across the Bonneville Salt Flats.  
  
"Thank you for your help, Principal Snyder. We'll take it from here", and Mulder was shaking the confused little man by the hand and ushering him towards the door before he knew what was happening to him.  
  
"He really doesn't like you very much, does he, Fluffy?" said Scully as the doors closed behind him.  
  
"Tell me about it, Agent Skuller", Buffy responded, smiling slightly to herself, absent-mindedly watching the library doors swing gently to and fro, until they finally came to rest.  
  
"I don't think he's liked anybody since his first date gave him the kiss-off in sixth grade", Xander said.  
  
"If he ever even had a f-first date", Willow added.  
  
"In my opinion the man's nothing but a power crazed, masochistic little insect, and an obnoxious little creep", Giles said, coldly furious, "and it is my fervent ambition, one day, to be able to tell him so to his face", and he firmly replaced his glasses.  
  
"Woo-hoo! Go Giles! We're right with you, man!"  
  
-----  
  
"So, you're all quite convinced they're not from other worlds, then?"  
  
They were now sitting at the big table in the middle of the Sunnydale High School library, the two FBI agents across from the Slayerettes.  
  
"We know they're not", Buffy said firmly. "No flying saucers here in Sunnydale I'm afraid, Agent Mouldy".  
  
"So if they're not aliens, what do you believe last night's creatures were?" Mulder said.  
  
"Would you believe in demons?" Willow said diffidently.  
  
"That's what you said last night, isn't it, er... Xander? I'm afraid I'm finding it a little difficult to believe, though".  
  
"You saw them - believe", said Buffy firmly.  
  
"OK then, if they are, where do they come from?"  
  
"Other dimensions", she told him, looking him straight in the eye.  
  
"Or maybe Los Angeles", Xander added.  
  
"Really? So how do they get here? Not by Greyhound, surely?" Scully asked, taking care to keep her expression neutral. "And why here?"  
  
"It's just a rather weird little town", Giles commented noncommittally. He really didn't want to give away anything he didn't absolutely have to.  
  
"Oh yes, Sunnydale is very different", Buffy agreed, with a little smile.  
  
"And how and why? Perhaps because the hills are alive with... the sound of magic?" Willow suggested. "The normal laws of physics obviously do work here, but they're not exclusively in charge".  
  
"Luckily we don't have to deal with a whole lot of these creatures. Not too many of them seem to have found this place yet. Our main problem is vampires", Buffy said.  
  
"Oh, yes", Mulder said, leaning back in his chair and smiling a little condescendingly. "I saw the garlic and crucifixes in the prowl cars when I visited Police Headquarters". He didn't sound either particularly convinced, or dismissive. He sounded, if anything, rather amused by what seemed to him to be merely a quaint, archaic tradition.  
  
"You really don't believe in vampires, do you?" Buffy said.  
  
"Or, in fact, any of this?" Giles added. He clearly felt somewhat offended that such an obviously intelligent man as Fox Mulder could find it so difficult to believe his own eyes, but of course one had to remember that this was quite a common state of affairs in Sunnydale.  
  
"No, I'm afraid not. My own theory is that they're just a sort of mythological construct", Mulder said, "the product of a mixture of devout religiousness and deepest superstition".  
  
"That definition fits the entire history of the Christian Church rather well, don't you think?" Giles pointed out.  
  
"Fair comment, Mr Giles", Mulder replied, nodding, "but I still tend to believe that these stories about the undead walking and talking are probably just a way for people to rationalise their fears of the unknown. Either that, or they may just be a misinterpretation of some other phenomenon, like, for instance, zombieism, which actually does have a sound scientific explanation. They can't possibly be based on reality. The Boogie Man and other childhood creatures of the night like that cannot really exist - whereas we know that alien visitors do. And that they're here".  
  
Scully sat silent while Mulder made his familiar little speech.   
  
She was the one who had been up to her elbows in green gore, dissecting a rapidly disintegrating head severed from a creature of the night, which had finally driven them both out of Mulder's room at three in the morning with its stench. Mulder had spent the rest of the night asleep on the couch in her motel cabin, while she slept on the bed.   
  
She had also not forgotten the previous evening's expedition to the cemetery, and looking up to see a spear suddenly poke out of the chest of the very real creature that had been about to finish her off with a very real and sharp sword!  
  
"Have you actually seen these aliens for yourselves?" Giles asked, genuinely interested, and Mulder nodded again slightly. "You see, from our perspective, they are the things that don't exist, whereas we might encounter a vampire or a demon almost any night of the week here in Sunnydale. As you've both seen for yourselves", he added.  
  
"We know the death rate in Sunnydale is much higher than normal for a town of this size", Scully said. "You're telling us that things like those we encountered yesterday evening stalk the streets after dark every night? That they're responsible?"  
  
The Slayerettes looked doubtfully at each other, and at Giles, hoping for a lead. How much more should they tell these strange FBI people?  
  
"Oh, we have vampires and demons like some people have mice", Xander said cheerfully. "Or maybe cockroaches".  
  
"And even vampires have to feed, I suppose", Buffy added after a moment. "But it's my job to stop them!"

* * *

END OF PART 8. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	9. Interview With A Vampire Slayer Pt 2

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 9: Interview With A Vampire Slayer - Pt 2 

"So you kill the vampires and demons, Buffy? Or slay them, as you call it. Why you? What makes it your job?" Scully asked.  
  
Buffy glanced at Giles, who shook his head very slightly in warning.  
  
She shrugged. "If you knew they were out there, attacking and killing people, maybe your friends from High School and so on, wouldn't you do something about it?"  
  
"But I don't understand. Why you and your friends, Buffy? Why should it be you?"  
  
"It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it", she said.  
  
"So you just go out and hunt these monsters down and kill them. Is it fun?" said Scully sternly.  
  
"Oh, no. Of course not" Buffy replied, frowning. "Look, Agent Skuller, this isn't a game for us, this is serious stuff. Last night, those three demons were hunting us. If they'd left us alone it would have been fine, but they attacked us, don't forget. And then they went for you", she added. "Remember?"  
  
"We did sort of save your lives", Willow pointed out diffidently.  
  
"Yes, and did we get a 'thank you' for it, I'd like to know?" Cordelia said sharply. "I think not".  
  
"Right. And after last night's fun and games, we didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition", Xander said, a little indignant.   
  
"And not a comfy chair in sight", Mulder murmured to himself, glancing round the library.  
  
"What about the police? Isn't that their job?" Scully persisted.  
  
"Have you actually met our Sunnydale police force?" Giles said. He sounded quite scathing. "I doubt if they could find their own rear ends with both hands and a mirror".  
  
"Right. And a book of instructions!" said Xander.  
  
"In extra large print!" Willow added.  
  
"With pictures too", said Buffy brightly.  
  
"Yeah. Dopey, much?" Cordelia put in. "All they're good for is handing out traffic citations".  
  
"Yes. Somehow the word 'useless' springs to mind", said Giles. "I think that, on the whole, they probably find it's sometimes more convenient, and safer for them, to turn a blind eye and let things take care of themselves, in the hope that the problems will all have gone away of their own accord by next morning, rather like a bad dream", he concluded.  
  
"So that means it's up to us to take care of things", Willow said.  
  
"Slayerettes to the rescue!" exclaimed Xander.  
  
"Xander!" Giles and Willow exclaimed, but it was too late, the words were out.  
  
"Slayerettes?" Scully said. "Is that what you call yourselves? Slayerettes? Why that name?"  
  
"Because we slay vampires, of course", Buffy said quickly.  
  
"And so I deduce you call yourself 'The Slayer'", Mulder said slowly, nodding to himself. "You were really the one in charge last night, weren't you? I saw you catch that tombstone thrown at me. Impressive, very impressive".  
  
Giles sighed. This was not going as well as could be expected. They were all giving away far too much information.  
  
"And you and your Slayerettes took care of three seven foot... er... demons", Scully said.  
  
"With knobs on!" Xander chimed in.  
  
"That's us", said Willow. "We hunt down the ghoulies and ghosties and long leggetty b-beasties, and things that go bump in the night".  
  
"Sounds like the Scooby Doo cartoons", said Mulder, with a smile.  
  
"You watch way too much television on your days off", Scully told him.  
  
"Which are few and far between", Mulder pointed out.  
  
"Oh yes, I've seen those too", Giles remarked, to the Slayerettes' surprise. They knew very little of his personal tastes in such things - they weren't even sure he actually owned a television set. So far as they knew, his favourite, and almost his only topic of conversation was Buffy's mission to hunt down and eliminate vampires and demons.   
  
"For research purposes only, you understand", he added for the others' benefit.  
  
"Yeah, yeah", they all said, grinning broadly. Old Giles a cartoon freak, just like any normal person! Who'd have thought it?  
  
"But it's basically just the same adventure every week, though", he continued, almost as if he was talking to himself. "And I'm sure they were really originally based on the Famous Five stories".  
  
Everybody sitting round the table looked at him blankly, save one.  
  
"Oh, yes, The Famous Five. I remember them", Mulder said slowly, surprising even Giles. He gazed into the middle distance, calling up old memories.   
  
"British kids' adventure story series, weren't they? There was a strange craze for them among the undergraduates when I was a student at Balliol College, Oxford - 2 boys, 2 girls and a dog, wasn't it? Finding treasure, or smugglers, or kidnappers or some such?"  
  
"So now we're the Famous Five? Nice name - I like it!" said Willow.  
  
"Well, I wouldn't exactly call Cordy a dog, though she can be a bitch sometimes", Buffy said, leaving Cordelia temporarily speechless, quite an achievement in itself.  
  
"This is one of those British 'growing up' things, isn't it?" Xander asked doubtfully, a little confused.  
  
"Yes" Mulder said. "It was the cool thing at Oxford University in the 80's for some peculiar reason. I suppose it would have made an interesting subject for my psychology thesis, if I hadn't already decided on one", he added thoughtfully.  
  
"When I was there in the early 70's the 'in' thing was magic", Giles said, and then looked as if he wished he'd not mentioned it.  
  
"Oh yes. The hills are alive with it", Mulder quoted, looking at Willow, who went bright pink with embarrassment.  
  
At this point there was a natural lull in the conversation, while everyone looked at each other and wondered what to say next.  
  
-----  
  
"So", said Giles eventually, "um... these aliens, then. Little green men?"  
  
"Not really", Mulder said. "Big, strong, but they do have green blood".  
  
"Ah, I see. That sounds very like what we met last night. I can quite see the reason for the confusion. You've actually met some of these aliens then?"  
  
Mulder in his turn thought about things - how much to say, how much he could find out from these people.  
  
"Sort of", he said eventually, cautiously. "But their blood is lethal to us, and they can change shape".  
  
"Oh, oh, oh! So that's why when the FBI vamp went into game face the other night, you thought he was one!" Buffy exclaimed.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
Mulder and Scully both looked blankly at her, as if she had just spoken to them in a foreign language.  
  
"We have specialist technical terms in our field of operations", Giles said smiling slightly, "as I imagine you do in yours. Willow, would you like to translate, or shall I?"  
  
"Hey, Slayer here! Don't I qualify?"  
  
"I thought Willow might be more adept at the technical explanations, Buffy", Giles told her.  
  
"Oh, OK. Me no think, me just kill", Buffy said in her best dull, low-IQ, Cletus-the-slack-jawed-yokel voice.  
  
"Yeah. Little Miss Whirlwind Blood-and-Guts 1997, much?" Cordelia commented acidly.  
  
"And you do it superbly, Buff", Xander reassured her.  
  
"Thank you, Xander. Glad to know someone has confidence in me".  
  
"Er, yes. Thank you", Giles said, furiously polishing his glasses again.  
  
'If he does that frequently enough', Scully thought to herself, 'he'll never need to go to an optometrist again - he'll polish himself a new lens prescription without noticing'.  
  
"'Game face' is our term for a vampire when it's showing its vampire or hunting face. Some of the time they can look quite like normal people, then when they start to hunt, or they're about to feed, their faces get all bumpy and their fangs appear", Willow told them. "Buffy told us about what happened to you when you met those two the night before last".  
  
"So it was you I saw when I was attacked", Mulder said to the Slayer.  
  
"You weren't actually attacked - well, not quite. They didn't get the chance", Buffy said sharply. "You were rescued. There's a difference. Those two vamps, they were your missing FBI men though, weren't they?"  
  
Mulder nodded.  
  
"Right, well if we'd been ten seconds later then you would have been turned, just like they've been".  
  
"Turned?" Scully said uncertainly.  
  
"Yes. Into a vampire - like them".  
  
"Oh! What, one bite and you're dead? Or undead?"  
  
"Well, barring a little mutual blood sucking, which is gross, but essential from their point of view, that's it".  
  
"It's actually a touch more complex...", Giles interposed.  
  
"...But not so's you'd have time to notice", Willow said dryly.  
  
Scully looked quite shocked.  
  
"It's as quick as that?"  
  
"Quicker", Buffy answered. "And they're much stronger than you, nearly invulnerable, and there are only three ways to kill one - putting a stake through its heart, cutting its head off, setting it on fire, and exposing it to sunlight".  
  
"That's four ways, Buff", Xander pointed out.  
  
"So bite me! Four ways then, Agents Mouldy & Skuller. Oh, and they don't like crosses or holy water either, of course. But I expect you already knew that".  
  
"What about garlic? Isn't that traditionally supposed to be a defence against the undead, er... vampires?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Well, it's true the only moderately safe profession in Sunnydale is that of French chef", Giles told him with a wry smile. "But I wouldn't stake your life on it, if I were you", he added.  
  
"So that explains the decorations in the prowl cars", Mulder said to Scully.  
  
"Oh, you noticed those too", Giles said. "Yes, garlic helps, but don't ask me why".  
  
"And how many vampires do you think there are in Sunnydale?" Scully asked them.  
  
"How long is a piece of string?" Xander riposted smartly. Then he looked puzzled, frowned and leaned over to whisper something in Willow's ear.  
  
"Twice as long as half a piece", they heard her whisper back.  
  
Mulder shook his head.   
  
"I'm finding it difficult to comprehend - the idea that dead people can actually walk around..." he said. "Or are they really dead at all?"   
  
"Oh, they're dead all right, or do I mean un-alive? Or rather undead. Oh dear, now I'm getting a little confused myself", said Giles.  
  
Xander attempted to clarify it for them: "It's life, Agent Mouldy, but not as you know it!"  
  
"Look", said Buffy, in the hope of explaining things. "Here in Sunnydale there are three ways of dying - permanently, temporarily, and being vamped. Number 2 is the only one I can talk about from personal experience, though I can't really recommend it".  
  
The two FBI agents looked hard at her, and she suddenly felt embarrassed.  
  
"It's a long story..." Giles started to say.  
  
"...And I'm too short", she finished. "'Nuff said?"  
  
Mulder nodded his agreement. Scully shrugged.  
  
"So what exactly was happening last night?" she asked.  
  
"I guess you were following us, after the previous night's little fracas, weren't you?" Buffy said accusingly.  
  
"It's a dirty job..."  
  
"Yeah, yeah. We get the picture", the Slayer said tiredly.  
  
"Yes, we see", the other Slayerettes chorused.  
  
"Let me try to explain it for you", Giles said, taking up the thread. "We had deduced that when the two FBI vampires disappeared they'd gone down into the storm drains that run under the whole town - and that's another story in itself. They use it as a way to get about safely during daylight hours, like a freeway, and they have dwellings down there, which we term 'nests'. We were hoping we could find where they were living, and if we could, either kill them - we call it 'dusting' them - or, if they weren't at home, work out how to get them when they would be down there during daylight over the coming weekend".  
  
"And you right royally screwed that one up for us", said Cordelia. "Clever... not!"  
  
"I don't think that's entirely fair, Cordelia", Willow commented. "It seems the vamps had probably recruited those demons, intending to ambush us. Trap us down in the tunnel and attack us from front and rear. Instead of which the vamps didn't show, and the demons were trapped instead".  
  
"And came to a very sticky end!" Mulder said with a smile.  
  
"Euwww! Don't talk to me about sticky!" Cordelia complained. "That dress was ruined. And I'll never get the stains out of my new leather boots - I'll have to get them dyed".  
  
"Well, at least it was the demons that died, and not any of us", Buffy joked.  
  
"And you should know what to wear by now when you're out on a night's patrolling, Cordy", Xander told her. "Anyway, we all got a fair share of the green blood, thank you very much".

* * *

END OF PART 9. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	10. Interview With A Vampire Slayer Pt 3

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 10: Interview With A Vampire Slayer - 3  
  
"So, Mr. Giles. How come you know so much about these demons and vampires and things?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Oh, well you must realise that under the circumstances I've obviously had to do a considerable amount of research on the subject. I have a certain number of reference books... upstairs in the restricted section", Giles said vaguely.   
  
Mulder looked at the upper floor of the library with interest. This was just the sort of thing he loved - new information on the weird and wonderful. After all, one never knew what stray or unusual fact might one day illuminate some baffling detail of an X-File.  
  
"I'd like to see, if I may".  
  
Giles looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, considering the request, and then nodded, perhaps a trifle reluctantly.  
  
"Giles!" Willow said urgently, and she tugged at his sleeve, but he ignored her.  
  
The two men got up and left the others, and climbed the short curving flight of stairs to the upper level, leaving her gazing anxiously after them.  
  
Giles led Mulder through to the back of the stacks where the collection of Watchers books was kept - his own specialist library for reference and research purposes, normally only accessible to himself and the other Slayerettes.  
  
"Why do you keep them in cages - are they very valuable? Do you have trouble with the kids at this school trying to steal them?"  
  
"Possibly I might, if they knew about them, but, you know, I think I'm almost more afraid that the books themselves might get loose!" Giles said enigmatically.   
  
-----  
  
"So, Miss Rosenberg, Willow. What are you studying at the moment?" said Scully, more to pass the time than for any other reason.  
  
"Um... You know - the usual stuff - like Reeling and Writhing and Fainting in Coils", Willow said nervously.   
  
"Uh... Oh, as in 'Alice In Wonderland' - right. And Mr. Harris?"   
  
"Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision?" Xander volunteered.  
  
"I see", Scully said slowly, now a little puzzled. "How about you, Miss Summers?"  
  
"Er... the history of Robin Hood?" said Buffy.  
  
Scully looked at her for a moment. Then she smiled.  
  
"Oh yes, the archery. Twang... please Sheriff, can we have our arrow back?"  
  
Buffy smiled too, and nodded.  
  
"Right. That sort of thing".  
  
"Agent Scully", Willow said slowly. "I was just... um... wondering..."  
  
-----  
  
"And then there's this other type that only eats..."  
  
"Mr. Giles, I'm sorry to interrupt. All this is absolutely fascinating, but what about the things, sorry demons, that attacked us? What can you tell me about them? Are you able to identify them?"  
  
"I think so. If you could just grab these last few books, we'll go back downstairs rejoin the others, shall we?"  
  
Giles dumped an unexpectedly large pile of heavy leather bound volumes into Mulder's unsuspecting arms, and taking a few of the smaller ones himself, he led the way back downstairs again.  
  
"Nice book collection", Scully commented dryly as they deposited their cargo in an untidy heap on the table in front of her. "Antiques? Rummage sale? Goodwill store?"  
  
"Giles", Willow said anxiously, trying to keep her voice down as much as possible. "Are you sure it's such a good idea to be showing them all this stuff?"  
  
"It's all right, Willow", Giles reassured her, equally quietly. "I've thought about it carefully, and I've decided that it's important they comprehend the situation here properly. After all, in the end it's their people that we've got to track down and deal with, and I think they really ought to understand just a little bit about the state of things here in Sunnydale".   
  
"So what happened to not telling them too much, then?"  
  
"Don't worry, Willow. I'm sure it'll be fine", Giles said, and he polished his glasses for perhaps the twentieth time that morning. "Don't make a fuss, there's a good girl".  
  
"I'm not fussing", she muttered to herself, and slumped back in her seat, still looking rather worried and unhappy. "Nobody except me seems to care that all this was supposed to be kept secret". Then she added, equally quietly, "And for that matter, why does everybody always think of me as a goody good girl? I can be b-bad too, I'm sure I can. I just need the right opportunity".  
  
-----  
  
"Look, isn't that rather like our three little piggies? Oh no, sorry. They've got tails".  
  
"Don't mention pigs to me!" Xander exclaimed, remembering the episode from the previous year, which had resulted in the school's mascot suffering the fate of all pigs, but without the benefit of a frying pan.  
  
"Euwww! I can't look a bacon sandwich in the face, even now!" Cordelia said.  
  
"That's because you're supposed to be on a diet", Xander pointed out, "at least, that's what you keep telling us".   
  
Cordy scowled, and stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
"Neither can I", said Willow.  
  
"Why not?" Xander asked.  
  
"Kosher, much?" Buffy reminded him.  
  
"Stop it, all of you", Giles said firmly.  
  
"Yes, do stop. Please, please stop", said Mulder unexpectedly, and groaned melodramatically.  
  
"Why, what's wrong Agent Mulder? Aren't you feeling well?"   
  
"He missed breakfast this morning for an extra ten minutes in bed", Scully told them. She was grinning broadly, and trying not to laugh, though not very hard.  
  
"Bed?" said Mulder. "Bed? I was sleeping on the couch, which may I point out was six inches too short. You were the one in bed".  
  
Everyone suddenly tried not to look at all interested in the FBI's domestic arrangements when out on assignment.  
  
"The demon head stank us out of Mulder's motel room", Scully explained. "I tried to do an autopsy before the whole thing disintegrated, but it was decaying visibly as we worked. I don't know how to describe the smell - it was like something from your worst nightmares, plus half a dozen rancid skunks. In the end it was utterly unbearable, and we had to retreat", she finished.  
  
"Was there anything left of it this morning?" Buffy asked. "I've often wondered whether there's ever anything for the trash collectors, or the police, to clear up the next day".  
  
Scully pulled a face.  
  
"There was nothing left of the head when I looked, except a lump of shiny goo at the bottom of the bucket. I'd dowsed it in formaldehyde, but without proper refrigeration I don't actually think I've much hope of getting anything useable back to the labs at Quantico".  
  
"I think I may have found the ones we're looking for", Giles announced suddenly. During the last few minutes he'd been leafing through a smallish red book which had its title in silver lettering riveted to the front cover. Now he was looking at an old woodcut depicting a group of monsters which each had a number of long thick projections sticking out of the tops of their heads.  
  
"That's them", Buffy said.  
  
"Definitely. Look at those crests. Does it say what they're called?" asked Willow.  
  
To their surprise Giles "ummed" and "ahh'd" for a bit. Then he sort of laughed, and said "Oh dear". He looked mildly disconcerted.  
  
"What is it, Giles? Don't they have a name?" Willow asked again.  
  
"Well yes, they do. They're Sumerian demons I think, or at least they're mentioned in some Sumerian myths. They were in texts written in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated by Sir Max Mallowan near Babylon, some time in the nineteen thirties. The tablets themselves are now in the British Museum.  
  
"Pretty ordinary stuff really", he continued, "but apparently they, the demons that is, originally came from somewhere else - I mean another hell dimension. I'm not sure exactly how to pronounce their real name..." He paused, looking perhaps a little embarrassed. "...But I can tell you roughly what it translates as".  
  
They all looked at him expectantly. He shrugged.  
  
"It just means 'knob-head'".  
  
Buffy looked up sharply. There had been a peculiar tone in his voice, and to her surprise she realised that her Watcher, the ever-serious Mr. Rupert Giles, was smirking!  
  
There was a short interval of silence, broken after a moment by a quiet gurgle from Mulder. Someone else sniggered.   
  
"Huh! Men!" said Cordelia.  
  
"Well, really!" said Buffy in agreement, unconsciously sounding just like Shirley Temple.  
  
"I'm speechless", Willow announced, contradicting herself by doing so.  
  
Scully looked at her partner and slowly shook her head.  
  
"Mulder", she said, "you have a dirty mind. What am I going to do with you?"  
  
-----  
  
"Hey! Hello-o! Slayer here!" said Buffy after a moment. "If everyone's done with the locker room humour, guys? I think we're losing sight of the purpose of us all being here, namely two renegade FBI agents who've been vamped. I just thought I ought to point this out", she added.  
  
"The reason, not the purpose", Giles corrected her, absent-mindedly straightening his glasses.  
  
"OK, OK, Mr Grammar man, but you must admit she's right", Xander said. "Why are we here?"  
  
'Ah, the Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, to which the Answer is not actually 42', Mulder thought to himself.  
  
"Our mission, should we care to accept it, is to find and finish off these two new members of the Fang Gang", Buffy said. "But we aren't going to do it by sitting here on our butts making smutty jokes, even if it does mean I get to miss double chemistry!"  
  
"Just a moment, please", Scully said quietly. "If possible we'd like to try to talk to them before we take any sort of irretrievable action. For one thing we ought to attempt to find out what happened to them in the first place".  
  
"Well, du-uh!" said Cordelia. "Isn't that obvious? Even I can tell you that! One of them was bitten by a local vamp that attacked him when he arrived, and then the other was recruited by the first".  
  
"Short and simple. That's quite probably exactly what happened. Very good, Cordelia", Giles said. "After all, the second agent would simply go up to the first one when they met..."  
  
"'...Et Robert est ton oncle'", said Willow. "After all, he wouldn't have known anything had happened to his friend until it was much too late".  
  
"So how do we go about finding them?" said Mulder. "I'm assuming they will have already heard about last night's encounter, and made themselves scarce".  
  
"Yes, they'll have moved house, so to speak", Giles said. "Finding them may be somewhat of a problem".  
  
"Not necessarily - Angel can probably help us".  
  
"You know how I feel about relying on Angel, Buffy. I'm fully aware you believe you can trust him implicitly, but we must still keep in mind the fact that he is one of them".  
  
"Who is Angel?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Ah! Who is Dead Boy? Good question", Xander answered. "If only we knew for sure".  
  
"Angel's a vampire, but he's a good guy. He helps us - well sometimes. He drove you back to your motel the other night after you encountered Tweedledum and Tweedledee", Buffy explained.  
  
'Aha, the heavy', thought Mulder, making a mental note to enlighten Scully later, when they were alone again.  
  
"He's a vampire?" Scully sounded confused. "There are good vampires? I thought..."  
  
"It seems there are exceptions to every rule", Giles said stiffly. "Even the one that says the undead are all evil bloodsuckers and must be staked at the earliest opportunity. At least, he's not shown us otherwise so far".   
  
It was obvious from the way he spoke that he would rather wash his mouth out with soap than freely admit the matter. Also that in fact he trusted Angel about as far as he could throw him.  
  
"So if you have a spy in the enemy's camp, so to speak, how do you contact him? Or is a vampire 'it'?" Scully asked.  
  
"Him", Buffy said firmly. "Angel is 'him'. And we can trust him absolutely. He's not really a spy - to the others he's just another vampire. They all seem to be aware he knows us, but they leave him alone for some reason".  
  
"Maybe we could go visit him now", Willow suggested eagerly. "Buffy knows where he lives".  
  
"He sleeps during the daytime", Buffy said to Mulder and Scully by way of explanation, "but he won't want us all turning up unannounced. Anyway, someone else might see us".  
  
Willow and Xander looked a little disappointed; they would both quite like to know a little more about Angel themselves. An expedition to visit him during the day would be a great way of getting out of some more classes, something Xander was always particularly happy to do, though Willow somewhat less so, of course. Also it would admirably piss off Principal Snyder, which would be a definite bonus in anybody's book.   
  
"How about I go visit him after school this afternoon? I can fix up for him to meet us all later this evening, after sunset. OK?"  
  
"He drove me back?" Mulder said doubtfully, harking back to something Buffy had said a moment or two earlier.  
  
"You banged your head on a gravestone when he dragged you out of your 'friend's' clutches".  
  
"That explains how you came by the headache you had yesterday morning when I rang you up", Scully said. "You suspected something of the sort, didn't you? And there was me thinking you'd really been out on the town!"  
  
"Hm. And daytime would certainly be best for reconnoitring a potential battlefield, wouldn't it?" Mulder pointed out. "No other vampires around to bump into. I think we ought to do that first".  
  
Everyone else immediately nodded in agreement, except Giles - those who could already see where this might lead, somewhat more enthusiastically than the others.  
  
"So?" said Mulder. "Shall we? What will your Principal say?"  
  
"I say 'Yes', to the first question, and 'Who cares?' to the second", Xander said with obvious eagerness.  
  
"Hear, hear".  
  
Giles hesitated, still looking uncertain. However, at length he shrugged reluctantly and agreed, so they all got up and began to troop out of the library. Unfortunately, just as they got to the doorway they ran straight into Principal Snyder himself, apparently snooping on his three current most problematic pupils. Cordelia of course had never caused him any trouble, though, as an eternal pessimist, or perhaps optimist, he always considered there to be a first time for everything. He was quite looking forward to that.  
  
"And where do you think you're all going? Recess is over, Miss Summers".  
  
Once again Buffy's mouth opened and words came out without her engaging her brain.  
  
"We've all been deputised by the FBI to look for the missing agents, and they want us to go and take part in the search right away", she said.   
  
At the back of the group, Mulder nodded slightly in confirmation.  
  
Snyder glared at her mutely, and if looks could have killed, Buffy would have been crispy overdone toast before you could say 'vampire', or 'discipline', or even 'detention'.  
  
Then, very rashly, as she walked past him, she extremely quietly, under her breath, made an anatomically impossible suggestion for him to try, to pass the time till they came back. The little man immediately went deep purple in the face. Veins stood out like a map of the tributaries of the Mississippi. He looked as if he was about to burst into flames, and said loudly "I heard that, Miss Summers!"  
  
But before he could get another word out, Scully, who was directly behind Buffy, stopped and looked him right in the eye.  
  
"No you didn't!" she said firmly. Snyder's mouth fell open in astonishment, and he abruptly went as white as a sheet.  
  
Last in line, Mulder hung back until his partner was out of the library door, then leaned over, grinned wickedly, and added "...but whatever it was, maybe you should try it anyway!" as the others moved off out of earshot down the school hallway.

* * *

END OF PART 10. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	11. Dangerous Moonlight

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 11: "Dangerous Moonlight".  
  
"Vampires? You kill them, they disintegrate - turn to dust. It's traditional", said Giles over his shoulder, as he led them in at the gates of the cemetery that evening, leaving the cars parked out on the road. Everyone was carrying at least one weapon of some kind, some of them considerably more.  
  
"So that's why Buffy used the term 'dusting'?" Scully said.  
  
"Not like in the movies, then", Mulder commented. "Bela Lugosi, eat your heart out!"  
  
"That Abraham Stoker has a lot to answer for", Giles said shortly. "If I ever come across him in the next life, he'll get a mouthful from me, I can assure you!"  
  
"Not blood, I hope!" said Buffy with a grin.  
  
"Who he?" Xander asked quietly, since he didn't want to display his ignorance too obviously.  
  
"He wrote 'Dracula'", Willow whispered back.  
  
"Oh, that old thing", said Xander dismissively. "I thought it was just a movie".  
  
It was a good thing Giles didn't hear him.  
  
-----  
  
"How are your unarmed combat skills, Agent Skuller?" Buffy asked her. "It's no use trying to shoot a vampire, you know. Bullets won't kill a vamp - they're almost invulnerable. You might as well throw pennies or doughnuts at them. Anyway, people with guns bother me".  
  
"Mmmm, doughnuts", murmured Xander.  
  
"So what do you use besides old fashioned hand weapons, like swords, axes and spears, if you can't shoot them?"  
  
"So far as I'm concerned, the very best thing for an undead American is an eighteen inch wooden stake, nicely sharpened, with you on the blunt end, and them on the pointy", said Buffy. "Second best is a crossbow, or a longbow like mine, with wooden arrows. You just gotta remember, you have to be sure to get them right in the heart".  
  
"Mmmm, steak", murmured Xander.  
  
"I think I can probably remember that", Scully said soberly. "By the way, I don't think I ever really thanked you properly for last night".  
  
"No problemo. Just doin' m'job, ma'am - saving the day is what I do best. Isn't it, Giles?"  
  
-----  
  
They walked slowly past the Alpert mausoleum, close to where Mulder had first encountered his erstwhile FBI colleagues. Everyone's eyes were peeled for trouble like fresh grapes - those of the two agents were practically out on stalks.  
  
"So where's the Acid Queen tonight?" Willow asked Xander quietly. "D'you think she's decided not to come?"  
  
"Well she wasn't waiting for us, and there was no sign of her car", he said, "so I think she must have stayed home to wash her hair - again. She's been complaining to me about the green goo all day between every class, on the hour every hour, how she's sure she hasn't got it all out yet".  
  
"Well it did have a pretty high ick factor, didn't it? But I think I'm rather grateful on the whole - that girl talks of nothing but herself. Y'know, sometimes I'm certain there's really nothing in her head except air".  
  
"Or hair. Or do I mean more hair?" said Xander.  
  
That cracked them up, and they had to 'shush' each other again before any possible nearby vamps heard them.  
  
-----  
  
"You know, I could swear that when I came-to, you were holding my hand", said Scully quietly.  
  
Mulder had the grace to look mildly embarrassed.  
  
"Just checking your pulse, Doctor Scully", he said.  
  
-----  
  
They passed close to an extensive clump of pine trees. Buffy peered into the shadows with her Slayer enhanced vision, straining to see if anyone was lurking among them, watching.  
  
Giles commented that he hadn't known the FBI were interested in the supernatural, magic, that sort of thing.  
  
"Actually, like most investigators, we try to find logical, scientific explanations for things, especially if there's been a crime", Scully replied. "But the 'unusual' is Mulder's specialty".  
  
"You still don't seem to be entirely convinced by all of this, Agent Mulder", Giles said.  
  
"I rather like to see things for myself", Mulder told him. "Solid evidence is essential, every time".  
  
"Not that you can always believe what you see", Scully reminded them from next in line, behind him, where she and Buffy were now walking together. Last in line were Xander and Willow, bringing up the rear.  
  
""We're here - this is it", Buffy said, and they all stopped, those behind bumping into the ones in front, just like a line of railway wagons in a shunting yard.  
  
"This is where last night's little fracas occurred".  
  
"Well, I'll believe it if you say so, Buff", Xander said slowly, "but if it is then, er... where's the manhole gone?"  
  
-----   
  
"Are you quite sure this is where we were last night?"  
  
"Yes, Giles. There's Principal Flutie's grave - look, the cemetery workers have already put up a temporary marker to replace it, see? The access hatch down to the tunnels was over there...", Buffy pointed, and hesitated, puzzled.  
  
"...Where that nice new grave is?" Xander finished for her. "How can that be?"  
  
"Maybe the vamps buried the remains of the demons we killed?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous, Buffy. They would never bother with a thing like that. Vampires don't give two hoots what happens to anyone else, not even their fellow vampires", Giles reminded her. "Perhaps they're simply trying to confuse us".  
  
"Well, they're succeeding", said Willow. "This is creepy". She wrapped her arms round herself for comfort. "It's weirding me out slightly".  
  
Xander patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, while Mulder stood looking round at the rows of graves, which stretched out in all directions. He was frowning slightly.  
  
"What is it?" Scully asked.  
  
"Well, it occurs to me that by blocking off the entrance to their tunnels, not only do they stop us getting down there to find them, but they stop us from using it as an escape route if they attack us up here" Mulder said thoughtfully.  
  
"Giving the enemy a sound tactical advantage", said Giles. "Good point!"  
  
"Oh, he's not just a pretty face", Scully said with a little smile.  
  
"So-o, we're expecting to be attacked any minute?" Willow said a trifle nervously, scanning the cemetery for signs of movement.   
  
Everyone clutched their weapons a little more firmly, and peered round them into the shadows cast by the lights along the footpaths, at the clumps of trees and bushes lurking darkly at the edges of their vision, at the vague rectangular shapes of the mausolea hulking like half-seen creatures in the gloom, waiting, waiting.  
  
"Uh, has anybody noticed that there's been a whole lot of funerals here today?" Xander observed to no one in particular. "Look at all those nice new graves".  
  
"Brrr! Cheerful, much? Quite gives me the shivers!" said Willow.  
  
Scully said nothing, but checked the automatic in its holster on her belt.  
  
"I think we should do a sweep through the area to see if there are any traces of vampires", Giles suggested. "Perhaps, Buffy, you could have a bit of a scout round first?"  
  
"Sure, Giles. Colour me gone!" and she slipped silently away into the darkness, the bow slung over her shoulder making her look like an escapee from an episode of 'Robin Hood'.  
  
"What if we don't find anything tonight, Mr. Giles?"  
  
"Don't worry, Agent Mulder. If there are any vampires or demons in the area, Buffy's bound to find them - she's particularly good at that".  
  
There was a slight rustling in the nearby stand of trees, and a voice said quietly, "Oh, they're here all right - I can hear them", which made them all jump. "They're watching you, just waiting for an opportunity. I hope you're ready for them". The speaker, a tall heavily built figure wearing a long dark coat, stepped noiselessly out of the shadows.  
  
"Oh. Ah. Angel. How nice to see you", Giles said, not really meaning a word of it, but all the same glad of a potential extra combatant on their side.  
  
"I'm sure you are, Giles. But never mind that - there's a small army of bad guys somewhere around, all ready to attack you. It wasn't really a very good idea to split your forces and let Buffy go off on her own".  
  
"Will she be OK? Should we go after her?" Willow said a trifle anxiously.  
  
"Oh, she'll be fine. You know the Slayer - she can take care of herself. Trouble is... you're now a fighter short!" He nodded to Mulder and asked casually "How's the headache?"  
  
-----  
  
After a seemingly endless, nervous few minutes wait, that to some of them felt infinitely longer, there was a faint crack like a breaking twig from somewhere in the bushes behind them. Everyone swung round together to face whatever might be about to come charging out at them, and grasped their weapons even more tightly. Then Buffy appeared from the gloom with a big smile on her face.  
  
"I think I just met one of the guys you're looking for", she announced, looking very pleased with herself.  
  
"Which one?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Oh, sorry. Didn't stop to ask his name. Either Tweedledum or Tweedledee, I guess", she said casually. "We didn't really have time to introduce ourselves and get properly acquainted - he tried to bite me, so I dusted him. Yay for me!"  
  
"So, one down", Giles said quietly, with obvious satisfaction in his voice. "Was he on his own?"  
  
Buffy nodded, unslung her bow, and gave the bowstring a firm pull to check the tension.  
  
"Damn", said Mulder. "I hoped we'd be able to talk to them, possibly work out some way to help them, or at least find out something about them, maybe what happened to them".  
  
"There's no helping them - they are dead", Giles reminded him sombrely.   
  
"And Cordy already told you what probably happened", Buffy said. "She might have all the sensitivity and tact of a ham sandwich in a synagogue, but she's experienced a few things with us already, and she did know what she was talking about. Though I hate like hell having to admit it", she added.  
  
"Oh yeah. She may be stupid, and totally self-centred but she's not that stupid!" said Xander. "She just generally doesn't care about things unless they affect her own perfect life, but when they do, boy-oh-boy, then she lets you know all about it".  
  
"But to be fair, she's not usually one to run around like a headless chicken...", Giles added.  
  
"...Though it was a close run thing, wasn't it, just last week?" Willow concluded.  
  
Xander and Buffy both nodded and smiled at the memory of Cordelia's narrow escape a few days earlier, when she'd been 'headhunted'.  
  
"Does this sort of thing happen to you all the time?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Mostly", Buffy replied, grinned, and looked over at Giles, who rolled his eyes to the heavens.  
  
"Not so much during the summer vacation, though, luckily. Maybe vamps take a holiday too?" Willow said.  
  
"Can we think about tonight, please?"  
  
Scully's sharp request brought them all back to the present with a bump.  
  
"You say you've just killed one of our two missing agents, Miss Summers? Can you please describe exactly what happened?"  
  
The tone of her voice made Buffy realise immediately that Scully was entirely serious, and back in her official FBI persona.  
  
"Oh! Yes, Agent Skuller. I'm sorry. I was jumped by two of the Fang Gang, about a hundred and fifty yards away, over in that direction. I got to see them both before they vamped out, went all bumpy face you know, and I recognised one of them from the pictures you showed us. It was definitely one of the two Angel and I surprised on Agent Mouldy's first night here. It tried to bite me, so I had to defend myself..." She shrugged.  
  
"I'm afraid that's definitely one of your colleagues accounted for, Agent Scully. There's only one way to deal with a vampire in those circumstances", Giles explained soberly. "You stake it, or it gets you - there's no other way. It's just self defence", he added quietly.  
  
Scully gazed hard at Buffy for a moment and then nodded. Then both agents looked at Angel quizzically.  
  
"What about him?"  
  
"Special circumstances", Giles said. "Um... he has a soul. Apparently".  
  
The agents looked at each other, surprised, and then at Giles, then back at Angel again, and lastly at Buffy, who said simply "Ordinary vampires don't have souls".  
  
"But you do?" Scully said to Angel. "They told us about you, but to look at you, how do we tell?"  
  
"Oh, believe me, he really is", Giles assured them, but with obvious reluctance. "You'll just have to take our word for it".  
  
"No they don't. You want me to show you I'm a real, live, undead vampire? Now?" Angel asked, to their obvious surprise.  
  
"Don't!" Buffy said sharply. "Please, Angel".  
  
"It's OK. The rest of you have seen me do it before. I'm not going to walk out into sunlight and burst into flames for you, Agent Scully, seeing what time of night it is, but how about my party piece?" and in an instant he'd gone into game face, right there in front of the two astonished FBI agents. He bared his fangs and snarled at them, and they both stepped back sharply and put their hands on their pistol butts.  
  
"You want me to say cheese so you can get a picture?"  
  
There was a moment's pause, everyone absolutely motionless, as if they were in the middle of a game of 'statues'.  
  
Then Angel suddenly leaped forwards, arms outstretched. Willow screamed, Scully was knocked aside, and Buffy grabbed Mulder's right arm in a grip like King Kong's, immobilising him with his automatic halfway out of its holster.   
  
"No!" she shouted. "Look!"  
  
Behind him Angel dived at a couple of vampires which had sneaked up on the group out of the darkness, unnoticed. There was a loud crack as he broke one's neck, and the other one howled in rage like a dog. There was a brief melee on the ground, fists and feet flying, a thump, and then abruptly there was silence. Angel got to his feet, calmly brushing dust from his coat, turned round and let his 'game face' go back to normal.  
  
"Everyone OK?"  
  
People glanced at each other, and caught their breath. It was beginning to look as if it was going to be 'one of those nights'.  
  
Then, "Hey, Buffy! Look! Over there!" Xander exclaimed, pointing.  
  
"And there, and there", Willow and Giles echoed.  
  
Around them graves were slowly opening, like a time-lapse film of leaves unfurling.  
  
"My God, look at them all, Mulder! There must be dozens of them".

* * *

END OF PART 11. TO BE CONTINUED... 


	12. Grave Mistake

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 12: "Grave Danger".  
  
"Don't panic!" said Giles firmly. "Everybody stay calm".  
  
'Don't panic?' thought Mulder, shaking his arm and wiggling his wrist where Buffy had grabbed him. 'With the dead rising to greet us?' At least the arm still seemed to be in more or less working condition.  
  
'Don't panic?' thought Scully. 'Why the hell not? I hope to God these people know what they're doing!'  
  
"OK, everyone get in a circle facing outwards", Giles said, "and remember, we may be considerably outnumbered, but we don't want this to end up like St. Custard's Last Stand".  
  
"Giles, we realise you probably still think of us all as bloody colonials, but have you no respect for American History?"  
  
'Or Practical Maths?' wondered Mulder irrelevantly.  
  
"Buffy, I'll have you know that I am rather better acquainted with American History than most of you Americans are", Giles replied. "Which is probably not really saying all that much", he added under his breath.  
  
As he was speaking, the librarian had yanked open the weapons bag he'd been carrying, and now he started quickly passing out extra weapons, murmuring to himself as he did so "Here's-a-sword-for-the-Rat, here's-a-sword-for-the-Mole, here's-a-sword-for-the-Toad, here's-a-sword-for-the-Badger!"  
  
Mulder couldn't help being amused when he noticed that. How typically English! He listened to the joking and banter between the Slayer and her Slayerettes, observing how calm yet alert and confident they were, and realised that they must be following a routine they had all experienced before, and were well used to. There was no doubt in his mind that, whatever might happen next, they felt in command of the situation.  
  
He discovered that he didn't feel so concerned or anxious any more. Rather, a sort of excitement had come over him. He looked across at his partner, to discover that the same feeling had apparently overtaken her as well. She too had a broad grin on her face and, like him, was gripping her weapon with more than average enthusiasm.  
  
"Ready, everyone?"  
  
There was a general nodding and murmur of assent, and they started to advance together as a group.   
  
Mulder was now carrying a crossbow, cocked and ready, and Scully a crossbow pistol, each loaded with wooden bolts, of course. Scully glanced over at Mulder - he was now humming the famous bit from the 'William Tell Overture' to himself, and taking aim at the vampire scrambling out of the grave nearest to them.   
  
"Remember to aim for the heart, Agent Skuller!" Buffy reminded her. "To your right! Quick!"  
  
Scully quickly swung her aim away from the main bunch of graves. There to her right was one of the undead already out of the ground and advancing at a run, scattering clods of earth from its clothes as it came. She took aim quickly yet carefully, her FBI firearms training automatically coming into play. She squeezed the trigger, and there was a sharp, snapping twang! In the dim light she couldn't really see the bolt zip towards its target, but the result was spectacularly successful. The vampire clutched its chest, stumbled, and dissolved into a shower of dust.  
  
Scully gawped at where it had been, then there was a similar snapping twang from beside her, and Mulder exclaiming "Jesus-H-Christ-on-a-bicycle! Did you see that?"  
  
"Reload", Xander's voice reminded them calmly, and they both hastily tugged on the cocking levers, and slapped new bolts into their weapons.  
  
Giles and the rest of them were already engaging others of the advancing horde of the undead in vigorous hand-to-hand combat. Buffy in particular had her own inimitable, spectacularly violent fighting style - alternately punching the living daylights out of one vampire, and kicking the hell out of another one, turn and turn about. Then, when she'd apparently punished that pair enough, she finished them both off with two brisk stabs of her stake, and quickly moved on to the next opponents to come lumbering into the fray.  
  
Xander and his axe were working overtime, and Scully saw that even her young fellow redhead, Willow, was doing good work, splashing any vampires within reach with something from a bottle that made them screech, and stagger back clutching their faces, giving Xander and Giles an easy target to chop off bumpy-faced heads unopposed. Dust was flying everywhere.  
  
For a moment Scully couldn't quite understand what she was using - was it acid? Then she remembered somebody's earlier remark about holy water.   
  
And then she was suddenly seized from behind.  
  
Buffy heard Scully cry out, dusted her current opponent in a single heartbeat, and sprinting across the grass, she dived at the vampire, which was trying to force the female agent's head back and sideways, so as to bite her neck. As she did so Agent Mulder also grabbed it, dragging it down to prevent it from getting its teeth into his partner. The four of them went down in a tangled blur of arms and legs as Buffy and Mulder both pounded the luckless ex-citizen of Sunnydale.  
  
"Bad choice there, sunshine hater!" Buffy quipped as she twisted its head round, and further round, and further round, until there was a loud crack and it screeched.   
  
"Eat your heart out, Regan MacNeil!"  
  
Mulder looked round for something to finish it off with, and there on the grass, just within reach, was Buffy's stake, apparently dropped in the melee. He seized it and plunged it, hard, into the vampire's back. It howled again and cursed, and snapped at him like a mad dog, but didn't disintegrate.  
  
"A little higher and to the left!" Buffy muttered through gritted teeth, still doing her best to wrench the creature's head clean off.  
  
"Sorry", said Mulder, though not to the vampire, and had another go. There was a silent explosion, and he shouted "Bingo!" as they all fell on the grass, suddenly smothered in dust.  
  
"Well done", said Buffy. "I think you're getting the hang of it". Then she bounced up and set off at a dead run for the next vamp, one which had just knocked Giles head over heels, causing him to drop his sword, and what was worse, his backup stake.  
  
"Always remember 'It's behind you!'", she shouted over her shoulder as she charged into the brawl, and hurling the vampire against a tree, she grabbed up Giles's broadsword and chopped off its head, all in one smooth, continuous sequence.  
  
Now more vampires were appearing, clambering out of the newly dug graves the Slayerettes had seen opening.  
  
Giles scrambled to his feet, straightened his glasses, and looked around for someone or something else to hit. His sword was gone, but he'd picked up his stake again, and, if necessary, the weapons bag still held a small selection of surprises.  
  
A figure lunged at him out of the deep gloom under the nearest trees, but he twisted out of the way of its attack, putting out a foot to trip it with, and jabbed upwards at the passing vampire. To his dismay the stake snapped in two with a disconcerting 'crack!', and the pointed half flew off into the darkness.  
  
"Oh, did the little man break his pretty stake then?" a voice said.  
  
"Yes", Giles said calmly, shaking his head and sounding mildly regretful. "You can't get the wood, you know. You just can't get the wood". And then, as the shadowy figure reached out again to grab him, he produced his 'spare' spare stake from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket, and smote firmly in the appropriate spot. After which a dustpan and brush was all that was required to deal with the remains of that particular individual!  
  
-----  
  
"Hurt?" asked Mulder, offering a helping hand.  
  
"Only my dignity", Scully answered, looking round for her crossbow pistol. She retrieved what was left of it and got to her feet.  
  
"I'm still in one piece, thanks, which is more than my weapon seems to be".  
  
"Here, take this!" It was Xander, in hot pursuit of one of the enemy. He'd paused to pull the crowbar from his utility belt and hand it to her. "A good whack with that should slow them down. Then you", he looked at Mulder, "can perform the necessary last rites. Right?"  
  
"Right! Got it!"  
  
Scully took a firm grasp of the cold steel pry bar with both hands, holding it just like a baseball bat, and shook it, testing its weight. It felt good. Xander patted her on the shoulder, said "That's my girl!" and ran off after the hastily receding vampire, shouting "Come back, you coward! I haven't finished with you yet!"   
  
A moment later he came trotting back, grinning from ear to ear, saying "We gotta keep together. Like Giles said, 'We really don't want this to turn into Custer's Last Stand'".  
  
Scully laughed. "We certainly don't, Xander. Duck!" she added quickly.  
  
"Quack?" said Xander, puzzled. Then her meaning dawned on him and he hastily flung himself down under the swing of her crowbar, rolling to his feet again behind her as if he did this every other night of the week. Which of course sometimes he did.  
  
There was a crunching clang and a howl as Scully hit a home run, and another vamp staggered back, clutching its hands to its mouth and spitting out a copious shower of fragments of dental enamel.  
  
"You broke all ma damned teeth, you bitch!" it exclaimed in muffled disbelief.  
  
Scully shook her head in mock regret.  
  
"So? Fangs ain't what they used to be", she said, and shrugged. Then there was a snapping twang from beside her, and the remains of the vampire blew gently away on the night breeze.  
  
-----  
  
"Where did Angel go?"  
  
Giles paused, about to stake another vampire, which took the opportunity to wriggle hastily out of his grasp and do a runner.  
  
"Damn! Was that the last one? It would have been my sixth tonight", he said, but he sounded only slightly irritated.  
  
"Oh dear, the one that got away. Never mind Giles, you mustn't be greedy - five's quite a good score", Buffy told him.  
  
Giles made a mildly rude response to that, and surveyed the battlefield, looking for the vampire that Xander delighted in referring to as Dead Boy, despite the fact that he knew it irritated the hell out of Buffy.  
  
"I don't know where he went", he said. "I've been a bit busy recently. Didn't anyone happen to notice?"  
  
There was a general shaking of heads and peering into the undergrowth, and Xander whistled for him as if he was a missing dog, which greatly entertained Mulder and Scully.  
  
"Um... Did anyone have time to see who opened that grave?"   
  
It was Willow, and she was pointing at the remains of the mound of earth which had originally been disguising the presence of the manhole cover they'd expected to find on their arrival. Since there were no more vampires visible in the vicinity now, everyone gathered round to peer at the hole where the cover had been. Soil was scattered about, and the heavy piece of cast iron had apparently been flung violently away into the nearby trees - Buffy could see where it had taken a great big chunk out of the bark of a pine.  
  
"Three guesses what this means", said Xander.  
  
'Two to spare then', thought Mulder. 'That Angel is obviously at least as strong as Buffy. I suppose they must need to be, or one of them would cause serious injury to the other when they got into a clinch!'  
  
Scully directed her flashlight beam down into the deep dark hole. There were the familiar rungs leading downwards, that they'd last seen as they'd all scrambled hastily up them, only the night before. And down at the bottom, on the tunnel floor, was a small scatter of soil.   
  
On the remains of the mound of earth at the edge of the hole was a tattered wreath. Someone reached down and picked it up, looked at it for a moment, and silently handed it to Buffy.  
  
The Slayer glanced at it briefly. The label read 'Buffy Summers, RIP'! It wasn't signed.  
  
"Obviously an optimist", she said lightly, and tossed it away over her shoulder.  
  
That broke the suddenly sombre mood, and everybody burst out laughing.  
  
"Right, never say die!" Giles said, and took off his glasses to give them an extra good polish.  
  
"Except to a vampire!" Xander responded instantly.  
  
"Absolutely", Buffy said. "How about the one that's watching us from behind that tree, right at this moment? Think I can get it?"  
  
"You must have incredibly good eyesight", Mulder commented. "I can barely make it out".  
  
"A bit far off in this low light, isn't it?" Scully asked. "I know you told Mulder you're Olympic standard, but...?"  
  
"Nah. Hey Giles, a little help here? Something from your magic bag?"  
  
Buffy retrieved her bow from where it had been dropped during the hand-to-hand fighting, and notched an arrow on the string. Giles took something from the weapons bag, touched it to the arrow tip, and Buffy bent the bow as strongly as she could. It creaked under the strain, and Scully wondered if it would be able to take the extreme stress. She remembered what else Mulder had told her about his first encounter with these young people, out on the road from the airport - that Buffy had already broken a bow that day.  
  
"Fiat Lux! Sequere Vampirum!" said Giles, adding something else that was not in Latin, in a lower tone, which neither Mulder nor Scully could make out. Then there was a deep twang and the arrow sped off into the darkness towards its target.  
  
And as it did so the arrowhead blazed into life like an exotic firework.  
  
It flashed across the grass like a tracer bullet, a bright little patch of light following it swiftly along the ground. The vampire could see it coming, and hastily dodged behind the tree. The FBI agents immediately assumed Buffy had missed, and that would be an end to it, but to their amazement the arrow suddenly swerved round the tree and disappeared. Their mouths dropped open.  
  
There was a shriek, followed by a big gout of flame, and Buffy leaped in the air.  
  
"Yay! Bulls eye!"  
  
"It worked!", Willow exclaimed. "Wow, Giles, that was amazing!"  
  
"I'll bet you two wish your bullets could do that!" Xander said, grinning at Mulder and Scully, who quite obviously couldn't believe their eyes.  
  
-----  
  
"Having fun, Buffy?" said a voice from somewhere below them. Everyone jumped, and then quickly looked down at the disembodied head which had just spoken from about level with their knees.  
  
It was Angel - only his head and shoulders visible in the manhole - looking for all the world like a satanic jack-in-the-box.  
  
"You still want to find that second vampire agent, don't you?"  
  
Everyone nodded in unison, particularly Mulder and Scully.  
  
"They won't be expecting us to follow them down into the tunnels after ambushing us", Giles said thoughtfully.  
  
"Right then. Follow me", and Angel's head sank from view and out of sight.

* * *

END OF PART 12. TO BE CONTINUED...


	13. Another Fine Mess

Title: "Statistical Anomaly"  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 13: "Another Fine Mess".  
  
"How much further, guys? My feet are getting really tired", said Willow.  
  
"And mine are soaking wet", Xander replied. "Plus I think I just stepped in something I'd rather not describe - but it definitely wasn't rainwater".  
  
"Would it be in order to say 'Euww!'?"  
  
"Euww!!"  
  
"Sh!"   
  
Everybody stopped, and became silent. They'd come to another fork in the tunnel. Buffy cocked her head to listen, and Scully saw her face screw up in concentration. After a moment the Slayer tapped the big vampire beside her on the shoulder and wordlessly pointed down the right hand branch. Angel raised an eyebrow, and she nodded firmly and punched him on the arm. He shrugged and moved off again in the direction she'd indicated. Everyone else followed as quietly as they could, all strung out in Indian file, but as close to each other as they could be without treading on each other's heels.  
  
They had been following Angel's nose for about fifteen minutes, but so far there'd been no clear trace of their quarry - the last FBI vamp, and what they assumed was it's now greatly reduced gang of minions. At each side passage they'd come to they'd cautiously shone their flashlights into the opening and peered along the beams, but so far without result.  
  
"Are you quite sure we're going in the right direction?" Willow asked diffidently. Angel and Buffy both looked back at her and nodded.  
  
"I can smell them", the vampire said, "despite whatever else there may be in the air".  
  
"But we're following Buffy's choice of direction now", Scully pointed out from just behind Willow.  
  
"Yeah. I can hear something along this branch - I couldn't down Angel's choice", Buffy said quietly. "There's someone talking".  
  
'Remarkably good hearing as well as incredible strength', Mulder thought. 'Very interesting. I wonder how come?'  
  
"How far off?" asked Giles.  
  
"What are they saying?" and "Can you tell who?" Mulder and Scully asked simultaneously. "Does it sound like our missing agent?"  
  
"Too faint to tell. These tunnels can carry voices for miles, but all the echoes just completely confuse the sounds", Buffy replied.  
  
"All right. Everyone hush now. If we can hear them, they can hear us equally well, and we don't want to alert them to our presence", Giles said in a low voice. "We'd have to start all over again, and I don't think any of us wants that".  
  
"Well, I for one want to get this dealt with tonight", whispered Buffy firmly, and Mulder and Scully both nodded vigorously in agreement.  
  
"OK, keep close then. Follow me, and mind out - this side passage is a lot lower than the main tunnel we just left", Angel told them.  
  
-----  
  
They'd gone barely another two hundred yards, everyone stooping to avoid banging their heads on the tunnel roof, when Scully swore quietly, and stopped.  
  
"What's wrong, Agent Scully?" Giles asked her.  
  
She shook her flashlight. The beam, which they could all now see was getting very dim, flickered and brightened for a moment, then died away completely.  
  
"Hey, Nancy Drew", said Buffy, much amused. "Who forget to put new dry cells in before she came out tonight?"  
  
Scully flushed, stuffed the now useless object back in her jacket pocket, and wordlessly took the spare that Giles politely produced from his bag without comment, and offered to her.  
  
They resumed their cautious progress down the tunnel.  
  
"Hey, Scully", Mulder said very quietly in her ear. "If you're Nancy Drew, I guess I must be one of the Hardy Brothers. But which one?"  
  
"Oliver!" said Scully sharply. She was obviously not in a good mood.  
  
It took Mulder several minutes to work that one out.   
  
-----  
  
After another five minutes, voices were clearly audible to everyone, and they had come to a place where the tunnel divided into half a dozen wider passages, each pointing in an entirely different direction, like the outspread fingers of a hand. Everyone had to wait as patiently as they could while Buffy and Angel went a little way down each in turn, trying to determine which one the voices were coming from. After the fourth or fifth the gang saw their flashlights waving, silently beckoning them to follow, and everyone trooped along after them.  
  
"You're quite sure this is the right one?" Giles asked quietly as the two groups joined up again.  
  
"Yup", Willow said. "I can hear them, now. And I think one of them's a girl", she added, sounding quite surprised.  
  
"There are female vamps, you know, Will", Xander said.  
  
"Actually more than half the victims are women", Buffy said.   
  
"Why is that?" Scully asked in a low voice.  
  
"Two reasons, I guess. One is that they're not as strong as men..."  
  
"...Oh. Right. Yes, thank you", said Scully. "I think I can deduce the rest. OK, I just wondered, because that was one of the things I noticed among the statistics for Sunnydale before Mulder started out. It's also one of the classic warning signs of a possible serial killer".  
  
"Well, that would be perfectly correct", Giles said. "After all, vampires are serial killers. They have to be; it's in their nature. That's how they survive - killing for human blood as often as they feel hungry. Or even just when they feel like it - simply for fun. Sunnydale is absolutely crawling with them", he added, "as you may have already noticed".  
  
Almost imperceptibly, Scully shuddered.  
  
"Um... you guys. That girl's voice sounds awfully familiar", Willow said hesitantly.  
  
"I agree", said Xander. "I'm beginning to get a bad, bad feeling about this".  
  
The two agents looked at him enquiringly.  
  
"I think I know why Cordelia didn't meet us at the cemetery gates as planned".  
  
"OK. Stay here, everyone", said Buffy. "I'll go take a look".  
  
She handed Giles her longbow, and took Mulder's crossbow instead.  
  
"Angel, please stay with them - I won't be long".  
  
"Buffy, you will be careful?" Giles and Angel both said together, and then gave each other identically eloquent dirty looks.   
  
"I'll be back!" she said in a gruff, mock-German accent, and giggled. "And turn off the flashlights, please guys", she added quietly in a more normal tone. "We don't want to attract attention to ourselves, do we?"  
  
With that, she moved to the inside of the tunnel's curve, and followed it round the bend and out of sight. One by one everyone else turned off their flashlights, and bit by bit the darkness became more and more impenetrable.  
  
They started to wait.  
  
-----  
  
Mulder decided to check how long it took before Buffy returned, looked at his watch, and realised that it was useless in the blackness, so he started to count his heartbeats.   
  
He'd been doing this for several minutes, had lost count twice and had to start again, when he detected a slight movement next to him. Then somebody nudged him gently in the ribs.  
  
"Scully? Is that you?" he murmured as softly as he could. There wasn't a direct reply, but a hand discreetly slipped itself into his and gave a slight squeeze. In the darkness Mulder smiled, and gently interlaced his fingers with hers in reply.  
  
"Just checking your pulse", came a ghostly whisper.   
  
-----  
  
"Guys? Anybody there?" said a quiet voice.  
  
"No. I'm tucked up in bed, having an exciting dream about Amy Yip".  
  
"Xander! I'm shocked".  
  
"And I'm not really at home in bed, Willow. Unfortunately".  
  
"I should hope not! I'd far rather you were with me than with Amy Yip. Here. With us, I mean", she hastily corrected herself, hoping he wouldn't notice.  
  
"Yes, yes. We're all still here, Buffy", Giles said impatiently. "Did you find anything?"  
  
Everyone started to speak at once, and the Slayer immediately had to shield her eyes from the sudden glare of all their flashlights.  
  
"Whoa, careful with those! OK, Giles. About two, three hundred yards further down the tunnel there are several chambers on each side. The vamps are using them as a series of nests".   
  
"How many of them, Buffy? We need to know numbers".  
  
"Sorry Giles, I couldn't see very well, but it sounded like a whole lot of them - a regular army. It looks like someone's been organising them. They seem to have guards out - they were patrolling up and down like they were sentries or something. There was a lot of talking going on, especially in the second chamber on the left. I think they have someone held prisoner in there - it sounded like a woman".  
  
"Just the one?" Giles asked, and the Slayer nodded.  
  
"Was it...?" Xander said anxiously.  
  
"I'm not absolutely certain - all the vamps were making a whole lot of noise and I couldn't hear properly, but I'm pretty sure that it was..."  
  
She was interrupted by a distant scream.  
  
"Cordelia!" exclaimed Xander. "It is! They're killing her. Come on!" and he charged off down the tunnel.   
  
Then - "Ow!"  
  
There was a sudden thud, and a certain amount of indistinct swearing, as Buffy dived for his legs and brought him down in a perfect flying tackle. She dragged him to his feet again but kept a firm grip on him with one hand and muffled his shouts with her other.  
  
"Xander! Wait! We've got to have a plan!" Giles said hastily. "Buffy, which chamber is she in?"  
  
"Second left - I told you already!" she said quickly.  
  
Mulder stepped forward.  
  
"Only a few vampires actually out in the tunnel?"  
  
"Yeah", said Buffy. "Oh, hey! I see! We can trap most of them inside their nests while the others rescue Cordy. Right, let's go!"  
  
"Come on, come on!" Xander mumbled in agonised impatience. "They could be draining her blood right now!"  
  
'Would she notice?' Willow thought to herself, and then felt dreadfully guilty.  
  
By this time the whole group had started moving along the tunnel, and was picking up speed. Meanwhile Mulder was hurriedly digging in his jacket pockets, and produced a couple of small, dull green canisters, which he passed to Scully, who nodded her understanding. These were followed by two more for himself.  
  
"We'll deal with the first chamber on each side, once you've disposed of the guards out in the tunnel", he said quickly to Giles. "You take the second chamber with your friend in, and we'll move on to deal with the rest of the chambers if necessary".  
  
"It seems your surviving ex-colleague has been organising as many vampires as he can get hold of, if the ambush back in the cemetery is anything to go by", Giles commented, drawing his sword as he ran. "Need any extra weapons?"  
  
"We'll stick to what we know", Mulder replied, and briefly turned his flashlight on one of the canisters so that the Englishman could see the stencilled lettering on it.  
  
Giles laughed, a humourless sort of sound, and said simply "I hope you've got plenty more of those. Guaranteed to make every party... etc, etc".  
  
Mulder patted his jacket and nodded.  
  
"I called in at the National Guard Depot on the north east side of town this afternoon. I think I picked up more than enough".  
  
"You may need every one you've got, even so", said Giles. "Make the most of them".  
  
A moment later there was a twang as Buffy disposed of the first of the guards with her crossbow. Then - mayhem!  
  
-----  
  
Mulder briefly put his head round the doorjamb of the first chamber on his right. There was a whole crowd of vampires inside, all of them arguing loudly, nineteen to the dozen. Luckily none were looking in his direction. He couldn't see anybody else, no obviously human prisoners that is, so he pulled the pins from both the canisters he was holding, gently rolled them in at the doorway, and quickly ducked back.  
  
There was a huge, brilliant flash, a satisfyingly loud double explosion which made his ears ring, and a great big gout of flame and smoke, which billowed out past him into the tunnel. Faintly he could hear yelling and screaming, and a couple of figures came staggering out, burning furiously, and promptly collapsed into dust. Smoke went rolling along the roof of the tunnel.  
  
Behind him he heard another explosion, then a fourth, and hot blasts of smoke and debris came scorching by - Scully had apparently decided to space her grenades out. He staggered, regained his balance, and felt in his pocket for another. Someone, presumably Scully, pulled him along the tunnel, past the melee in the doorway of the next chamber, to be met by a crowd of vampires streaming out of the third and last one. For one frozen moment both parties stared at one another, then someone shouted, "It's the National Guard!", and all the surviving vampires promptly turned and fled.  
  
"Be a pity to waste these, don't you think?" Scully said, taking more grenades from Mulder's jacket pockets, though Mulder could hardly hear her through the humming in his ears. He grinned, pulled out the pin from his own grenade and tossed it after them, aiming low and making it leap and skip down the tunnel like a stone flipped across a pond. Bounce, bounce, bounce it went, hopped into the air one last time, right into the receding pack of the undead, and went off with a huge blast of flame which scorched his eyebrows. Once again smoke rolled out along the tunnel ceiling, and bits of cement fell down, and as things cleared, they could see a small number of scorched survivors trying to pick themselves up and stumble away as hastily as they could.  
  
The two agents looked at each other.  
  
"It's quite a way, can you throw that far?"  
  
"Let's shorten the range a bit", said Scully, her eyes gleaming. She was clearly enjoying herself. Mulder nodded, and the two FBI agents went striding briskly off down the tunnel.  
  
"Don't get lost, now!" someone called out from behind them, and Mulder nonchalantly waved an acknowledging hand without looking back.  
  
In the next couple of minutes there were several more loud bangs, and shortly afterwards they came strolling back together, arm in arm, with big grins on their faces, looking around hopefully to see if there was anyone or anything else they could blow up.

* * *

END OF PART 13. TO BE CONTINUED...


	14. Down Among The Dead Men

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman Of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

PART 14: "Down Among The Dead Men". At the instant of the first explosion, the Slayer and her companions had charged into the second chamber on the left and caught the enemy with their metaphorical pants down!  
  
Xander immediately spotted Cordelia chained to the wall in the far corner, and made straight for her, hacking the heads off any vamps that tried to get in his way. That left the other Slayerettes to deal with all the rest, a good couple of dozen at least.  
  
"Are you alright? Have they hurt you?" he asked anxiously, dropping his axe, and immediately starting to try to loosen the hasps set in the wall, using the crowbar he'd retrieved earlier from Scully.  
  
"Where the frickin' hell were you all?" Cordelia was almost crying as he struggled to free her.  
  
"We went to the main cemetery gates, just like last time, but you weren't there, so we simply thought you'd decided to stay home tonight", he growled, straining at the crowbar.  
  
"You thought I'd stayed home? When there are real FBI agents to hang out with? Oh please! How not cool would that be? " Her voice rose to artistically indicate her astonishment. "Get real, Xander Harris! I would never miss out on something like that! Anyway", she added, "I went to where we agreed to meet, and you definitely weren't there".  
  
"Yes, we were. Ask the others - we parked both cars at the entrance to Restfield cemetery", Xander assured her. He hacked vigorously at the stonework, but it barely made a scratch.  
  
"Restfield?" Cordy screeched. "I thought you said Westfield - that's where I went. But as soon as I got out of my car I was grabbed by vamps. I thought I was dead for sure, but for some reason they dragged me down here instead. Come on, Xander, hurry up and get me out of these chains - I am so not into bondage!"  
  
"We did say Restfield, you dummy!" Buffy said tartly over Xander's shoulder, casually dusting a vamp as she did so. "Westfield is the road along the south side of the Lawns cemetery. You want a hand there, Xander?"  
  
"No thanks, Buff - I've got it. I can manage - I think". He jabbed at the wall again with the crowbar, but still with very little result.  
  
"Yes, yes. Use your super strength please, Buffy", Cordelia interrupted. "Just get me out of here before this oaf tears my dress".  
  
The Slayer looked at Xander, who shrugged and stepped aside. With both hands she took a firm hold of the chain fastening Cordelia to the wall, and gave a hard pull. There was a loud metallic bang as the chain seemed to simply explode, and burst links flew everywhere. There was also a nasty ripping sound followed by an angry shriek.  
  
"You tore the arm right off of it! Dammit, Buffy, now my dress is completely ruined!"  
  
"Oh dear. So sorry", said Buffy, looking unconvincingly innocent.  
  
"Well, at least you're still alive and in one piece", Giles said, brushing a large amount of dust from his tweed trousers (as an Englishman, he steadfastly refused to call them pants), and looking round to see if there were any more vamps to polish off. "Don't be such an ungrateful little cow, Cordelia!"  
  
Cordelia's mouth fell open and she gaped at him in astonishment.  
  
"We really have got better things to do than have to rescue silly girls like you", he added brusquely.  
  
Cordelia then managed to surprise them all by bursting into real tears, which gave Xander the perfect opportunity to comfort her, but which also meant he had to listen to her maudlin self-pity for at least another ten minutes.  
  
-----  
  
Mulder and Scully back came into the chamber and had a look round. To their surprise the place now contained almost no vampires at all, but was seriously in need of a good spring-clean.  
  
"Did anyone find our second agent?" Mulder asked.  
  
"Over there".  
  
"We have prisoners! Yay for us!" exclaimed Willow, almost hopping up and down in her excitement.  
  
Giles just pointed mutely across the room at where three surviving vampires were being kept penned in a corner by Angel, who held a cocked crossbow aimed at them, by Willow herself, holding a large open bottle of holy water and a heavy ornate silver crucifix, and Buffy, who had a sword in one hand and a stake in the other.  
  
Apart from that, there was just Xander Harris, who seemed to be trying to comfort the girl who'd been missing, Cordelia Chase, and a thick layer of dust scattered about all over everything.  
  
"First time we've ever tried to take prisoners", Buffy said quietly, without taking her eyes off them for a single second.  
  
"Not the first time we've ever managed to rescue anyone, though, but certainly never against higher odds", Giles observed.  
  
"Purple Hearts all round", one of the prisoners called out sarcastically. "Even for little Miss Posh. Those rats made you scream, didn't they?" He laughed.  
  
Everyone else looked at Cordelia. Rats? What did he mean?  
  
"What?" said Xander, hardly able to believe his ears. "You were screaming because of some rats? We thought you were being tortured, or having your blood sucked out of you, not just 'cos of some little old rats!" He sounded thoroughly disgusted.  
  
"We didn't have time to get to the feeding, more's the pity", the vampire said nastily. "We were saving her for later. She's a tasty looking piece, ain't she? Nice and plump, just how I like them".  
  
Luckily for him, and for her own peace of mind, Cordelia missed that last gem.  
  
"So I don't like rats!" she said crossly. "And they were huge, the size of dogs!"  
  
"It's all right, Cordelia. Everyone has something they can't stand. It's nothing to be ashamed of", Giles said gently, as if trying to make up for his earlier outburst.  
  
Mulder turned back to the three captives again. The one sporting the remains of a government issue suit was obviously the leader, and must presumably therefore be the second of the two agents he'd been sent to find. Unfortunately the vampire was still in game face, so he couldn't tell which one he was.  
  
"Are you Agent Doyle, or Agent Manetti?"  
  
"Who wants to know?"  
  
"I'm Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI's Washington office, and this is Agent Dana Scully. We were sent here to California to look for you and your colleague when you both went missing".  
  
"Oh, yes, I remember you - we met already in the cemetery the other night. Well, now you've got me. I'm Manetti. Or I was. I hope you like what you can see". the vampire said sullenly, and slid down the wall into a sitting position, where he appeared to make himself comfortable. The other two moved a little aside at Angel's gestured instruction, and did the same.  
  
Without having to be asked, the rest of the Slayerettes withdrew from the chamber, and they all huddled together out in the tunnel to allow the two agents some privacy. This was official business, and apart from Buffy and Angel acting as guards to keep Mulder and Scully safe from being attacked, there was little more they could do for the time being.  
  
After a short discussion with the prisoners, both agents came out again and walked a little way down the tunnel with Giles so that they could talk to him in confidence.  
  
-----  
  
"Well, Mr. Giles, you're the nearest we've got to an expert here".  
  
Rupert Giles gave Mulder a funny look, but managed to hold his tongue. He wondered what 'experts' on the subject the FBI might have back in Washington.  
  
"What are the chances of getting our agent back to Los Angeles?"  
  
"I would say 'not in your lifetime'", Giles replied promptly, if a trifle obliquely.   
  
Mulder looked at him, slightly confused.  
  
"You mean...?"  
  
"They're about the same odds as that of a snowball's survival in Hell, Agent Mulder", Giles elaborated. "Your lifetimes would be very short, I fear. Three vampires would arrive in Los Angeles, or, more probably, none would arrive there at all.   
  
"You have to remember", he continued, "he's much, much stronger than you are, and totally invulnerable to bullets. Even if we tried tranquillizing him, I'm afraid I really don't consider you have the experience to get him back in one piece. Or yourselves, in that situation".  
  
"Oh", said Mulder, obviously disconcerted. "So what would you suggest we do?"  
  
"We've never had quite this sort of situation come up before", Giles said slowly. "We always just kill them in hot blood, so to speak. Well, on our part at any rate - theirs is always cold, of course. As Buffy would probably put it - 'Vampire bad, pointy stake good, let's party!'".  
  
He looked at the two agents for a long moment. Then - "Do you have any more of those grenades?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Oh, I don't think we could do that", Scully exclaimed. "That would be execution, plain and simple!"  
  
Giles sighed, and shrugged.   
  
"They are dead already", he pointed out. "They simply haven't been persuaded to stop walking about yet. You'll have to face up to that fact".   
  
The two agents looked at one another silently.  
  
"Well, we can't just let them go", Giles went on, "we'd only have to dust them another night". He sighed again, and shook his head regretfully. "And before we could manage that, they might well have killed any number of people, and probably turned a some of them into vampires. Frankly, Agents, I don't see how we could possibly allow that to happen. The very last thing we want in Sunnydale is more vampires!"  
  
-----  
  
In the chamber where Buffy and Angel were still guarding the prisoners, the atmosphere was strange, tense. The three vampires were now huddled together in the corner, talking very quietly.  
  
Buffy looked at Angel, as if to say 'should we stop them?', but he just shrugged. She wondered what the two FBI agents were planning to do with their captives. Would they tell her to dust them? Would they try to take their man back to Washington with them, or let them all go, or what?  
  
By now several minutes had passed, and she was curious to know what Mouldy and Skuller were doing. Probably Giles was having a long philosophical discussion with them, if she knew anything about him.   
  
"Angel, will you be OK here for a moment? I just want to see what's the what outside".  
  
Angel nodded, expressionless, and she lowered her sword and walked over to the door.  
  
"Got your stake?"  
  
Without thinking, Angel quickly patted his coat pocket to check, which meant he was only holding the crossbow in one hand, and it was not the one with its finger on the trigger. That was the moment the vamp that had been Agent Manetti chose to lash out with its feet, catching Angel unawares and kicking his legs out from under him. The two others scrambled up as he fell heavily.   
  
Buffy was already halfway out through the door, and looking at the people in the tunnel, when she heard the commotion. She spun round. There was a twang as Angel dropped the crossbow, which went off. The bolt ricocheted off the low vaulted ceiling, and she flinched as it skimmed past her face. The next instant someone outside swore vividly as they were hit.  
  
For a couple of heartbeats Buffy didn't know which way to move - out into the tunnel to help the casualty, or back into the room to help Angel, but her instincts took command.  
  
The fight lasted just as long as it took for her to drag Angel back to his feet, and for the two of them to have staked all three vamps.  
  
Except that the third one, Manetti, was already standing again, holding the reloaded crossbow, and aiming it at them.  
  
Angel and the Slayer froze. If either of them moved, that one was instant kebab - the bolt could be equally deadly to each of them.  
  
"Go left, split his aim", Angel muttered. "I'll jump him, you stake him".  
  
"No way - I'll jump him and you stake him!" Buffy replied.  
  
"Dammit, Buffy, don't argue with me. Just do it!"  
  
"No!"  
  
"Yes. Now!"  
  
"Oh, Hell! OK!"  
  
Buffy jumped sideways, but the vamp anticipated her by immediately leaping back into the doorway. Now neither she nor Angel were close enough, despite their enhanced strength and speed.  
  
The ex-agent laughed and said "Mexican standoff, anyone?"  
  
For a moment everyone stood very still, each of them looking first at one and then the other person in the chamber with them. Then Buffy started to chuckle.  
  
"Hey, stupid much, or what?", she said with a broad grin.  
  
The vamp frowned, and stared hard at her. Angel looked question marks in her direction. Now what was she up to?   
  
-----  
  
Buffy put two fingers to her lips and blew as hard as she could. And when Buffy whistled, you could have heard it right down in the harbour.  
  
-----  
  
At the ear splitting sound, everyone out in the tunnel looked up sharply from where they were all clustered round Mulder, who was sitting on the ground with the stray crossbow bolt sticking in his thigh, bleeding like a pig and swearing like a trooper, with Scully all flustered and fussing round him in full Florence Nightingale mode.  
  
"Bloody hell!" said Giles. He spun round, grabbed hold of the nearest available pointed wooden object, which happened to be the bolt in Mulder's leg, yanked it out, took two steps to the doorway and plunged it straight into the last vampire's back, right through its heart.  
  
"'And that', said he 'is that!'", he said.

* * *

END OF PART 14. TO BE CONCLUDED...


	15. Our Town

"Statistical Anomaly" by A Gentleman Of Leisure.  
  
Disclaimer: See Part 1.

* * *

Part 15: "Our Town".  
  
Fox Mulder was sure he had never in his whole life been as uncomfortable as he was at that moment. He was sitting in a sadly battered shopping trolley, with his wounded leg stuck out in front of him propped up on a pile of coats and jackets, being pushed through Sunnydale's storm drain tunnels back towards the expedition's starting point in Restfield Cemetery. Every time the wheels bumped over any unevenness in the concrete floor, a fierce stabbing pain went through the injury, and it was a hard job to hold back the occasional groan.  
  
It had soon become obvious that he could never walk all the way back with a hole in his leg, even if Scully had been carrying some painkillers to give him (which unfortunately she wasn't), so when someone found the scorched old Wal-Mart trolley in a corner of one of the chambers they'd thrown the grenades into, everyone had simultaneously jumped to the same solution. It had been a lucky find all round, because up until that point they had been discussing taking turns to carry him piggy back style, and he had not been looking forward to that. He knew that it would probably have been even more painful than being trundled back like a week's shopping.  
  
So now here he was, being wheeled along by the young Slayerettes, with Buffy Summers out in front, acting as 'point', and Xander Harris in 'tail end Charlie' position. Everyone else was taking it in turns to push. No one seemed to mind in the least, despite it's irritating habit of veering sideways without the slightest excuse, in the traditional manner of supermarket trolleys all round the world.  
  
The girl they'd rescued, Cordelia Chase, was conducting a desultory quarrel with young Xander, now that she'd got over her narrow escape from the vampires, and her terrifying encounter with the rats. The argument seemed to consist mainly of her complaining, "Why does this sort of thing always seem to happen to me?" It was plain enough to him that there was some strange sort of, as yet undefined, relationship between the two of them, even though they didn't seem to realise it themselves yet.   
  
Mentally he classified her as a vapid little cow, probably with a rich father, and likely enough she was a cheerleader, for whom being the most popular girl in school was the epitome of teenaged achievement. He guessed that she was the type of girl who might possibly end up as a minor soap actress on some local TV channel, if she was extremely lucky and got all the breaks.  
  
Xander Harris, he decided, seemed to be the faithful class clown type, obviously much loved and trusted by the other Slayerettes. 'Not the brainy sort, though. A manual job somewhere in his future, I would guess', Mulder thought. "But with his luck he'll probably end up earning more money at it than all the rest of them put together!" That idea made him smile to himself, unnoticed in the dark.  
  
And Buffy Summers and her tame vampire boyfriend - a girl whose life was dedicated to killing vampires at any opportunity, in an emotional relationship with one? Now there was as strange a situation as he had ever seen. It didn't occur to him that he was now accepting the concept of vampires without any question.  
  
As for Angel, he was still a complete mystery. No one had said anything much about him at all, not even a mention of his surname. Certainly no one had revealed anything like enough information to let him come to any sort of conclusion. Sherlock Holmes himself would have had a hard time deducing anything about this individual!  
  
And what about the sweet, shy redhead, Willow Rosenberg? For him, she was perhaps the most interesting. And puzzling. An enigma. He couldn't quite make her out. She seemed to have some of the characteristics of a possible genius - diffident, earnest, quiet, obviously very intelligent indeed, and yet innocently childlike as well.  
  
She was the psychological type who might go far - perhaps even to working for the FBI one fine day, he thought, though most probably in some back-room, expert capacity - like, for instance, working on X-Files. However, exactly what her field might eventually turn out to be, it was far too early to say - he'd not had sufficient opportunity to study her properly in the short time he'd been here in Sunnydale, and certainly didn't have anything like enough data to work with. He reminded himself he'd somehow been rather busy, what with one thing and another.  
  
And that just left the British librarian, Mr Rupert Giles, he of the black-flagged file. There was obviously a great deal more to him and his position among this merry band than met even the keenest eye.   
  
'Well, one day, one day. Finding out will be an interesting challenge', he told himself.  
  
Then the trolley hit another bump, and his mental analysis of the Slayer and her team was painfully interrupted.  
  
-----  
  
"Left", said Buffy firmly.  
  
"No, straight ahead", Giles said, and pointed at some graffiti on the wall of the tunnel. 'Vampires live for ever!' one read. Another said 'Vampires rule!' A third, much fainter, simply read 'Kilroy Was...' and trailed off.  
  
"I'm almost certain we passed those on the way in, earlier this evening". He took off his glasses to polish them. "I particularly noticed the inaccuracy of the first one". He smiled to himself at his little joke.  
  
Buffy looked at the others to back her up, but mostly they just stood there and shrugged. Even Angel shook his head.  
  
"Can we please make up our minds?" Scully said sharply. "We really need to get Mulder to ER as soon as possible".  
  
"OK Giles, but if you're wrong, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so', and possibly even 'Nyaa nyaa, nya nyaa nyaa!'", said Buffy, and set off down the centre tunnel as chosen by her Watcher. Some fifteen minutes later, a familiar looking metal ladder came into view round the bend, and everyone heaved a mutual sigh of relief.  
  
It took several minutes for them to haul Mulder up it without causing him more than the minimum amount of extra pain - Angel pulling him, and Buffy, last one out, pushing.  
  
Puffing and panting she scrambled out onto the grass and stood up.  
  
"Woo! Agent Mouldy, would the word 'diet' be overly offensive?" she said. Then it registered that no one was paying her any attention - they were all looking at their surroundings.   
  
"Where are we?" Scully asked.  
  
"I don't think we're in Kansas any more", said Willow slowly.  
  
She was quite right - they were standing in the middle of a flower bed in a small area of decorative gardens in the centre of the downtown shopping mall, and a surprised and nervous pair of Sunnydale police officers were illuminating them with the headlights of their patrol car, and pointing shiny shotguns at them.  
  
"Nyaa nyaa, nya nyaa nyaa!" murmured Buffy to herself.  
  
-----  
  
Almost exactly twenty-four hours later, again at about three in the morning, two cars quietly drew up outside 1630 Revello Drive. From one, a shabby old Citroen DS19, a middle aged man and a blonde teenager got out. From the other, a nondescript grey Ford sedan, a tall thin man and a trim red headed woman joined them, the man getting out of the passenger side of the car rather slowly and awkwardly, and walking with a pronounced limp.  
  
"So this is where you live, Miss Summers?"  
  
"Casa Buffy - where I lay me down for a couple or three hours a night, if I'm lucky. Between patrolling, and slaying, and training, and school, that's my life. But I'm OK with that... I guess".  
  
"It's a tough job", Scully observed quietly.  
  
"...But someone's got to do it".  
  
"How's the leg, Agent Mulder? Not so painful now, I hope?" Giles asked politely.  
  
"I insisted he rest up in the hospital for at least 24 hours", said Scully.  
  
"It's OK. The crossbow bolt missed all the important bits, luckily for me", Mulder said with a wry smile.  
  
"I don't suppose my ripping it out to stake the last vampire with helped all that much", Giles said. "Again, I'm really, really sorry about that. It just happened to be the first thing to hand".  
  
Mulder pulled a face and said he thought he would live.   
  
"He hates hospitals, so I let him discharge himself", Scully told them. "At least I was able to assure them he'd be attended by a qualified doctor for his entire journey back to Washington".  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Me".  
  
"Oh!" said Buffy.  
  
Mulder leaned back and carefully perched himself on the hood of the Ford to take some of the weight off his injured leg. He stared at Giles intently until Giles was impelled to ask him why.  
  
""Well, when I first encountered you, out on the airport road the other day", he said thoughtfully, "I had this strange idea we'd met before, or that I'd seen you somewhere. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to place the occasion. For some reason I've a definite feeling it was in England, but I've no idea when".  
  
"You said you were at University there", Giles reminded him.  
  
"Yes, but quite a few years after you. I did spend a year in a British public boarding school as an exchange student in my early teens, though. That would have been at around the same time, wouldn't it?" He frowned. "Somehow I associate the memory with music of some sort. Mean anything?"  
  
After a moment, a smile began to spread slowly across Giles' face. He leaned forward towards Mulder, and spoke for a moment in a very low voice that even Buffy's keen hearing could not quite make out. Except for just a couple of words - "Bass guitar".  
  
Then Mulder laughed, and said, "Yes, that must be it! We went up to London one half term - the date's about right". He glanced over at Buffy and added, "Your young friends - they don't know?"  
  
Giles shook his head, and deliberately avoided the Slayer's eye. She mentally pigeonholed the item for future investigation.  
  
"There's one last thing I'd like to check with you before we leave", Scully said. "It's just one of a number of strange anomalies we spotted in the data about Sunnydale before Mulder set out to come here, and that's the question of how many graveyards there really are in this town".  
  
"Oh, just a baker's dozen", said Giles, amused.  
  
"So whoever typed the forty two cemeteries data into our database, that was simply a mistake? A typo?"  
  
"A slip of the keypad I suppose. I believe it's known as 'finger trouble'. That's just one of the many reasons why I hate computers so much - you never know if they've got things wrong until it's much too late", Giles said. "I don't think I'll ever quite come to terms with them. Give me a good reliable card index to cross-reference any day of the week. At least a passing cosmic ray can't alter the information on them while you're not looking".  
  
"Hey Giles - no fair", said Buffy. "I'm no science geek, you'll agree, but even I know that a computer can only work with what it's given. That would just have been human error. We did all about that in computer studies last semester, before the summer break".  
  
"Well, I for one will continue to let Willow use the school library's Devil's Machine. For myself, I shall stick to the old fashioned kind of research - original ancient documents, dusty volumes, and mysterious scrolls. Each to their own, I say".  
  
"Oh yes, talking of 'their own' - that reminds me", Buffy said, and sighed heavily. "You know I reckoned Snyder would find a way to get his own back on me? Right, well he has. This afternoon he appointed me in charge of the arrangements for the parents evening in a couple of days time".  
  
"Oh, I can't wait to see that", Giles said, manfully ignoring her creative grammar. "I'm sure the responsibility will do you a world of good, Buffy. It will give you a very useful sense of perspective, I feel certain". He took off his glasses, checked them for smudges, found none, polished them anyway, and put them back on again.  
  
"That's what you think!" Buffy retorted. "He said that he'd deliberately picked the two worst students in the school, that's me and Sheila - you know, the one that stabbed Mr Green, the horticulture tutor - and that if either one of us screws up she'll be expelled!"  
  
"Oh, I don't think you need worry about that. I'm quite sure you'll do fine, if the last couple of days is anything to go by", said Scully with a smile.  
  
"Really? Say, thanks!" Buffy said, genuinely surprised.  
  
-----  
  
"So", said Giles, "I suppose you two are now off back to your Headquarters on the East Coast? I do hope you've enjoyed your visit to Sunnydale".   
  
"Yeah. Wonderful Sunnydale, not twinned with Sunnybrook Farm. Not so much a tourist resort, more a last resort", Buffy quipped.   
  
Then she added soberly, "I'm really sorry we weren't able to save your two friends".  
  
"You all did your best", said Scully. "No, far more than your best. I've a nasty feeling that if we'd not had your help we might easily have ended up just like them".  
  
"Yes, you definitely would have", said Buffy quietly. "No 'might' about it". She paused briefly, and then asked, "Did you get to collect your bag of dust?"  
  
"Some for each of the widows, and some samples for our forensic labs", Scully replied. "Though I don't know quite what they'll be able to make of it".  
  
Mulder had been listening in silence to this exchange. Now he looked up sharply, scanned their surroundings and said, "Someone's watching us".  
  
"Up there", said Scully, nodding towards an upstairs window looking out over the street. "I'd already spotted her".  
  
Mulder followed her glance and could clearly make out a small, freckled face with long hair in a centre parting, peeping out at them over the window-sill. For a moment his heart skipped a couple of beats, and the image of a different young girl overlaid what he could actually see. Scully discreetly put her hand on his.  
  
Then he heard the Slayer saying wrathfully, "That's my little sister! The brat, what's she doing in my bedroom? I'm going to ring her neck when I get hold of her!"  
  
"Nya-aah! You've got to catch me first!" a clear young voice came floating through the cool night air, and the face promptly vanished.  
  
"Later", Buffy promised.  
  
-----  
  
"Well, Washington's a long way", Scully said, "and I really don't feel like spending any more time here in Sunnydale than I have to".  
  
"Agreed", said Mulder. "I think we'd best be leaving while we're still in one piece, and with no further battle damage, if you see what I mean".  
  
"Can't blame you", Buffy replied. "It was never my choice of home town, anyway". She said this looking sideways at Giles.  
  
"Neither was it mine", he said quietly, "as well you know, but needs must when there are devils driving, if you see what I mean".  
  
"So... er... thank you both for all your help. And your Slayerettes of course. It's been... um... an interesting visit", Scully said. Then she and Mulder soberly shook hands with both the Slayer and her Watcher, and got back into their car.  
  
Mulder put his head out of the window for a moment.  
  
"And please remember, Miss Summers - we were never here", he said.  
  
"OK, Agent Mulder, Agent Scully. I'll hold that thought", she assured them.  
  
Giles, too, indicated his agreement, and the Watcher and his Slayer both stepped back from the car as Mulder rolled the window up again, and Scully started the engine.  
  
"OK, Mulder? Comfy?"  
  
He nodded, so Scully put the car into 'Drive', and they pulled smoothly away from the sidewalk. The last thing either of them saw, reflected in the rear view mirror as they turned the corner at the top end of Revello Drive, was Buffy cheerfully waving goodbye.  
  
-----  
  
Giles yawned.  
  
"I'm not used to all these late nights. However, I think we should be able to take things easy for a little while, don't you?"  
  
"I wish! Whenever I think that, something unexpected always happens", Buffy said. "It's like it's a law of nature, or something".  
  
"Murphy's Law", Giles told her, getting back into his shabby old Citroen. "And if the world ends before tomorrow, please don't wake me up - I have simply got to catch up on some sleep".  
  
"Huh. It is tomorrow", said Buffy.  
  
"Whatever", said Giles, yawning again. "Dammit, you see what you've done? I'm using American English myself now! Goodnight. Or good morning".  
  
He started his car.   
  
"D'you think we'll ever hear anything of them again?" Buffy asked.  
  
Unable, like most people, to see into the future, Giles shook his head, casually dismissing the idea, and put the Citroen into gear with an awkward grating sound. Buffy said nothing as he, too, pulled away and drove off down the road, leaving her looking thoughtful, standing on the pathway leading up to the front door of her home.  
  
-----  
  
"So, no aliens, at least not this time. Are you disappointed?" asked Scully as they turned the corner into Crestview.  
  
Mulder considered the matter carefully.  
  
"No, not at all, well not really - we got demons and vampires instead, didn't we?" he said after some thought. "They're nearly as good. And then there's this strange sort of inert conspiracy of concealment - by ignoring anything weird - that the whole town is involved in. Very interesting, psychologically, don't you think?"  
  
"We'll find the truth one day", Scully said, "whatever it turns out to be".  
  
"The truth?" Mulder echoed thoughtfully.  
  
"It's out there, somewhere", Scully assured him. "You of all people should believe that - after all it's what you keep telling me".  
  
"Thanks, Scully. I do sometimes wonder, though. Maybe all this chasing to-and-fro across the country is just a complete waste of time". He shook his head, and tried to settle himself more comfortably in his seat for the drive down Highway One to LA to report.  
  
"I know you don't really believe that, Mulder. You're tired, and your leg hurts, that's all. Do you need another painkiller?"  
  
But Mulder didn't reply to her question. Instead he slid the seat back as far as it would go, laid his head against the rest, and closed his eyes, leaving Scully to drive on in silence through the deserted, sleeping streets of Sunnydale.  
  
In fact she secretly felt quite relieved they were about to leave the strange little seaside town. It had been a pretty bizarre few days, all told, and she reckoned they would be well out of it.  
  
Then Mulder suddenly opened his eyes again and sat up. "That 'You Are Now Leaving Sunnydale' sign marks the city limits, doesn't it? Can you pull up a little way beyond it, please, Scully?"  
  
Wondering why, Scully obliged, coming to a halt about forty or fifty yards past a small children's playground, and turned off the motor and the lights. Mulder rolled the window down again to let in the cool night air, and for a little while they just sat and listened to the absolute quiet.  
  
"What is it, Mulder? Why have we stopped?" Scully said eventually. "You've been in a very funny mood ever since you arrived in Sunnydale".  
  
"You're right, but I don't think it's just been me, Scully. For instance, didn't you notice that Buffy Summers took to calling us by a strange version of our names? The two of them mixed up?"  
  
"Yes? So?" Scully said slowly.  
  
"Well, I noticed you were doing the same to her - you kept calling her Fluffy".  
  
Scully looked slightly taken aback.  
  
"Lighten up, Mulder. It was just a joke".  
  
"Hmm. That's not like you, Scully, not like you at all. Still, OK", Mulder said, shaking his head slightly. Then he continued, "I'm just wondering whether there might be something about this place that's been affecting our behaviour".  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Yes. We've neither of us been our usual selves at all the last couple of days. It's almost as if we've been guests visiting in somebody else's reality".  
  
Scully looked at him in utter amazement for a moment; said, "What, you mean like the 'Twilight Zone'?" and actually burst out laughing. But then anything else she might have been about to say was lost as the hush was broken by the noisy approach of another car. It came careering into sight round the bend in the road and swept past them - a scruffy old classic 1958 Dodge DeSoto Fireflite, which smashed straight through the matching 'Welcome To Sunnydale' sign on the opposite side of the roadway, knocking it flat, and screeched to a halt just down the street.  
  
The two agents looked back over their shoulders and watched silently as the driver, a medium height, bleached blond, Billy Idol look-alike, got out, calm as you please, strolled to the kerb, produced an old Zippo lighter from the pocket of his ankle-length, black leather coat, and lit up a cigarette.  
  
Mulder quietly and discreetly rolled his window up again.  
  
"Shouldn't we...?" asked Scully. Mulder shook his head.  
  
"It's half past three in the morning, and as Buffy told us, this is Sunnydale, not Sunnybrook Farm, and we know the town is infested with vampires".   
  
Scully got the point, restarted the car, and they pulled away as gently as they could. The driver of the DeSoto apparently never even noticed them go.  
  
"Home, sweet home", said Spike, and blew himself a perfect smoke ring.  
  
-----   
  
The government issue grey Ford sedan joined Highway One and headed southeast as fast as it legally could, and perhaps a little bit faster. For some time, neither of its occupants spoke.  
  
Then, after a good half an hour, Scully said, "So once again, apart from some samples of dust, we have no physical evidence to back up our reports, Mulder".  
  
"We've still got those unprocessed films..."  
  
"True". The thought of the dissection of the demon head could now make Scully smile, at least slightly.   
  
"Even so, how are we going to explain all this to Assistant Director Skinner?"  
  
Mulder considered this.  
  
"Oh, we'll think of something", he said eventually. "We just have to use our... er... initiative".

* * *

THE END.  
  
[Author's note: The first draft of this story was originally published on ATBSC in 2003. This version is a full rewrite, completed mid-July 2004.]


End file.
